


The Stars Never Set

by lolneptune



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anal Sex, Animal Death, Bickering, Community: hd_erised, Fingering, First Time, HP: EWE, M/M, PTSD, Post-War, References to Depression, Safehouses, stuck together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-03 07:02:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12743382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lolneptune/pseuds/lolneptune
Summary: When Draco was seven years old, his mother told him that England was rainy and that it would never stop being rainy.





	The Stars Never Set

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jadepresley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadepresley/gifts).



> A big, wet kiss to the mods, who have been so incredibly patient and wonderful and kind; to L, for reading some of the worst sex in the history of writing it down; and to my wonderful, wonderful giftee, who I've had the boundless pleasure of stalking for the past three months - you have been my biggest inspiration!!

When Draco was seven years old, his mother told him that England was rainy and that it would never stop being rainy. She liked to tell him it was like giving the earth a bath. What then, he’d ask, did it mean that it bathed so often? How dirty was the earth? How dirty was he?

She bought him cashmere and pet his hair and held him when he cried. Draco loved his mother.

“Everything I’ve ever done has been out of love for you,” she whispered against him now, some ten years later, hair glowing in the light of the safe house. Her hands settled warm on his back, but Draco saw her eyes when she released him: hard, and clear, and the lines on her face like old wounds.

“Mother, I could - There are other options we need to consider.” He looked to his father imploringly, but then he recognized the distance in his eyes, and he wished he hadn’t.

“There aren’t,” she said.

He turned his head sharply to face her. His shoulders twitched, body held taut like string. His mother was firm, but she was never dismissive.

 _No_ , his eyes willed her. _You can’t. This isn’t how it was supposed to end._

McGonagall cleared her throat. When Draco noticed her, she looked tired and uncomfortable. His fingers itched to rip something.

“If you do this for us, Mr. Malfoy, it will be of great service to us all. If that’s of interest to you, I should add.” She gazed at him significantly.

He reined in the snarl he felt on his tongue. “Surely, Professor, there are more worthy subjects for your pity.”

“ _Draco_.”

“You’ll be pleased to hear that I couldn’t care less for your personal comfort, then.” She ignored the noise his mother made. “We want your help; you need our protection. Don’t you think that’s fair?”

He narrowed his eyes. “No.”

He felt his mother grab him. It made his arm hurt. “ _Draco_ ,” she hissed at him, “you will go with the Headmistress or you will fall. Is that what you want?”

His father looked like he was somewhere else.

Draco remembered the year Pansy’s father had cheated on her mum, and she’d been the only one who knew. Well, and Draco, when she’d told him. She’d described it like: he’d sat there, at dinner parties, and his focus had been like that, like he’d been somewhere else, like he hadn’t registered the voices speaking to him. Where Draco’s father travelled now wasn’t an affair; not really. But the way he drifted reminded him of Pansy’s father, and the way he’d looked on Christmas of 1998.

After the battle, Draco noticed the rain. It was always raining in Scotland, but this was heavier and thick, as though it was mixed with something else.

If he looked outside, he'd see it. But this room didn't have any windows; it had a desk, and a lamp, and a door. He didn't even know where it led.

They were still in hiding; as soon as the war had ended, weeks ago, his father had taken them both to a cottage in rural France. Draco’d remembered it from the time he’d been ten and they’d had to leave the Manor because there were rats and the weather was bad and the neighbours were crude, or something. Actually, it’d been that someone was coming after his father, and this time wasn’t so different. The cottage was magically expanded, but his room was still smaller and warmer than the one at home. He liked that. And he had a view of the backyard, layers and layers of green. He liked that even better.

One night, Draco’d woken up and hadn’t known why. He’d crept to the hall and then the sitting room and found his mother, pressed into an armchair, eyes open and wet. When Draco had looked around, there’d been broken glass on the floor and a rock. That had been yesterday.

When Draco was nine years old, and he cried until he couldn’t feel his hands, his mother told him that crying was like giving yourself a bath, and Draco wondered: What did it mean that he bathed so often?

What he liked to think was that he could protect his mother, and that’s why it wound him so when she tried in turn to protect him. It made him feel daft, and helpless. The truth was - he kept thinking about them trying to kill her, even though he didn’t want to, and in spite of everything. What if they took her away? What if they took _him_ away _from_ her?

“No,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

x

Draco hovered in the space of the open window, breathing the spray of rain against his face and the sound of it. It felt like monsoon season; the air smelled thick and wet. It hadn’t rained this hard in weeks. On the radio, an old Muggle relayed the weather, sounding as though he was speaking from very far away.

“Malfoy.”

It was Harry, but Draco wouldn't turn to him.

“Malfoy.”

“What?” he said, feeling more tired than he had in his whole life.

“Go upstairs. I need to check if the backyard’s flooding.”

Draco edged farther out the window. “It is,” he said. “There’s no way it isn’t.”

If he looked, he would see him fidgeting with his hands - pulling at his fringe or picking at that goddamned jumper. Maybe Harry had a mug of tea in his hands. And he would be warm. “Well, right. I gathered as much,” he said. “Your tea’s on the counter.” And then Draco heard him leave.

It would be easier if they could use magic, but Minerva didn’t want them to. Their magical footprints were traceable, she’d said. Draco hated it. He felt like he had in first year, realizing for the first time there was something he couldn’t have. Sometimes his fingers itched with the desire to do something - cast something easy, like a warming charm. It didn’t have to be much.

It was raining in sheets, enough to gather at the curb and carry rocks and twigs and leaves. Those ugly Muggle machines wove audibly past the window, and in the rain, they became monsters with white eyes, cracking pools of rain with their big feet as they went. Draco pulled the window shut and switched off the radio. The room felt stuffy immediately, and twice as dark.

He got up and went to the kitchen, where he found his tea where Potter had told him it’d be and burnt his tongue drinking it. It didn’t make him feel much warmer. He wondered about Harry, so he went up the stairs and into the bedroom and to the ledge of the farthest window. And he watched him.

The room was small. As there were no lamps in the room except for the ceiling fan (and this one didn’t work), the entire room was sort of musty with dark and damp. When they’d settled, it’d smelled vaguely of lavender; now, it smelled like soap and something weird. There were two beds, about three feet apart, and Potter had the one closer to the window. Draco’d have taken it, if he’d gotten there sooner. As it was, Potter was famous and pretty and poor, and also he’d gotten first dibs.

Through the fogging glass, Draco recognised his black hair and the blurry length of his body. Skinny git. The colour of the sky was dark and the trees were darker, nearly black; the tree Draco liked was bending like a piece of wire in the gale. And Potter was hunched in the middle of the yard, dragging something heavy and long.

For a horrible moment, it looked like a body.

It caught on a lawn chair, which folded and trapped the thing so that Potter had to stop and untangle it. He was moving things inside, out of the rain. He always got his hands dirty like that, came back looking like a bog monster. It didn’t matter what the task or even the location was: some days, returning from a stakeout, Potter looked like he’d toppled arse-over-tit into an extremely muddy hole. Sometimes Draco wondered if he was insane, or if everyone else was.

Draco realised what had been out there, saturated, now, by the rain: pillows, teacups, Potter’s favourite quilt. The book Draco had been reading last night.

It hadn’t started out that way, wasn’t supposed to happen. Potter had wanted to sleep outside, because he was reckless and stupid and entitled. Draco had yelled at him and tried to coerce him back inside with the promise of open windows and tea.

“What’s it matter to you?” Potter had said, finally. “For fuck’s sake, I never asked for your help.”

Draco had floundered, hurt and not sure how to say that. “Potter, you’re an idiot if you think I’d let you put yourself in danger.” He’d flushed briefly. “Minerva would strangle me!”

“And what a pity that’d be.”

“Potter, if you don’t stop acting like a prissy brat, so help me I will strangle you first.”

“Look,” Potter had said, tone grating and short. “I appreciate the concern, but I can handle myself. Join me or go back inside.”

So Draco had gone back inside. And he had taken his book and went out the back door and approached him with the sort of dignity that came with being the bigger person. It was hot and damp as a mouth, and Potter had looked surprised to see him - evidently, it hadn’t been meant as an invitation.

“Decided to -”

“Shove over, Potter.”

 

That night, Potter had stopped talking, stopped seeing, even seemed to stop breathing; but then, most evenings here were like that. Draco had finished the better half of his book, and Potter had lay on his back, awake for hours, blinking at the clouds.

“You owe me for this,” Draco had told him.

Potter hadn’t seemed very bothered. He’d taken a long breath and stretched until his fingers touched the grass. “No, I don’t,” he’d said easily. “Malfoy, just so you know, I don’t give one fuck how you feel about me. If you hate me, that’s fine. I don’t hate you anymore. But we’re going to be here for a while, so you’d better stop following me around like a crup. I don’t take kindly to people trying to protect me. I lived eleven years in the dark, and I won’t let it happen again.”

Malfoy had stayed absolutely still. It had felt like his whole stomach was draining slow as molasses out of his body. “I’m not trying to protect you.”

 

Draco saw his shape move inside, and heard the echo of his feet in the living room. He thought of going down to help him with the quilt and things, but he cringed at the thought of handling mud.

Draco turned to look at him when he came in the room.

“You look like a wet dog,” said Draco.

His bare feet left wet spots on the carpet, fringe slick against his face and clothes dripping with - for heaven's sake - lots and lots of mud and water. His glasses were spotted with rain.

Potter took off his glasses and wiped them uselessly on his shirt. “You flatter me.”

“You’ll catch a cold if you don’t change.”

“Don’t you think I know that? Nothing’s clean, arsehole. This was my last pair of jeans that wasn’t covered in mud.”

“Actually, if you bothered to look, you’d see all your jeans are dry and entirely mud-free.”

“No, they’re not.”

“I took pity on you and did the washing yesterday.” Draco sighed. “Too bad all the washing in the world won’t make them fit you properly.”

Potter didn’t respond for a minute. “You make it really hard to like you, Malfoy,” he said eventually. “But, er… Thanks for doing that.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Well, someone had to do it,” he muttered.

 

x

 

A week passed. They didn’t really do anything on rainy days.

The worst part of all was being stuck without magic, not entirely because of Draco's itching fingers, but because of Potter's idiot tantrums and, Merlin and Morgana, his impatience.

Today had started alright. Draco had gone and cleaned the kitchen, a bit, and Potter had traipsed in and brought the whole loaf of bread upstairs while Draco’d looked on in disdain. Really, he could’ve asked him to make something, if he was so hungry.

And Draco had finished his book, and then he’d started a new one. And then he’d finished that one, too.

At four in the evening, Potter snapped.

“There’s nothing to do,” he said. “What the fuck am I supposed to do?”

Draco glanced up at him reproachfully. “Why don’t you find something to read?” he said.

Potter stood from the armchair and began pacing. He picked up the phone, the wooden duck, the beach towel, put each of them back down. Like he was looking for something.

“What are you looking for?”

“Nothing,” he said loudly.

Draco shifted, interest piqued. “Tell me what you’re so bloody narked about.”

Potter cast a dirty look at him. “You want to know what I think?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay…” He turned to face him. “I think this is a joke. I kill the Dark Lord, nearly get killed myself in the process - then _actually_ get killed -" Draco frowned here - "and months after his real, actual death, his psychotic little sheep are still circle-jerking to his corpse. And meanwhile, we’re stuck here, and _nobody’s_ telling us anything, not until McGonagall sends word, or someone feels sorry enough to update us. I think it’s ridiculous that you can read like that - like Hermione, or something - and ignore the fact that people are still in danger, that Rookwood or Avery or - or your _father_ could be out there, slaughtering Muggleborns like cattle as we speak.”

“My father was pardoned.”

“But - Okay, you’re right. Sorry. But others are still out there, Malfoy. And I feel useless not doing anything about it.”

"You feel useless, do you?" Draco breathed harshly around the stone in his chest. "Clean the bathroom. Do the washing. And while you're at it, think hard about what it might be like to act less like a whinging little brat."

“That's rich, coming from you, Malfoy."

"Yeah?" Malfoy stood from his chair. "Have fun feeling useless, asshole. I'm going upstairs."

The rain came harder.

It had always been easy to fight with Potter; Draco was weak, and Potter was stubborn. Those first days in the safe house had been like… like living with the lights turned off. They’d avoided each other like inclement weather, using the bathroom at odd hours and wordlessly taking turns to sleep downstairs. The times Potter had reached out to him, Draco had been careful to show disinterest and the cold curl of lips he knew was so characteristic to him.

There was a threatening rap on the window pane. Draco felt a swell of anticipation, and sure enough, the owl was now familiar as the chill of anxiety that followed in its wake. Draco opened the window, and gave the owl - Moros - a bite of what Potter mistakenly referred to as food for its trouble. Then he opened the letter.

 

_H &D-_

_Location Y, 0200. Bring the cloak._

_-MM_

 

x

 

They Apparated to the alleyway, and he let go Potter’s arm like it had burned him. Draco could only see the crescents of his eyelashes in the dark - the streetlights were conspicuously absent.

“Harry!” cried a shrill voice, and Potter was promptly pulled into a painful looking hug.

“Hermione,” he said into her hair. “Ron. It’s good to see you.”

Weasley pocketed his light-putter-outer-thing, and Granger handed Potter off to him for a sound thump on the back. “Good to see you, too, mate.”

Draco stood with his back to the wall and his arms crossed over his chest. Any day, now.

“How are you? Oh, it feels like it’s been longer this time… I’ve been speaking to Professor McGonagall about, you know…” She slanted a look towards Draco and began speaking in a whisper. “But she won’t budge, Harry. I don’t know if there’s anything we can do. I’m sure if it’s really… if it’s really awfully bad, she’d be willing to reconsider. I just don’t know if there are any other options…  I wish the three of us could room, but she was so adamant that we stay in pairs, so we all had someone to look after. I do see the merit in that, but it is rather thoughtless to choose our partners for us. I wonder if no one would've roomed with him, otherwise. It's not fair to you, though, is it? Ron’s brothers are all staying in pairs, save for Bill and Fleur.” She looked suddenly to Weasley, eyes pitying and sheepish. Weasley seemed either not to notice or care.

“Hermione,” said Weasley soothingly, “I’m sure Harry’s holding up alright.”

“Oh, Harry!” she said, and took him into her arms a second time. “And with Ginny gone, and… and stuck with _him_ … Oh, it must be awful!”

“Really, Hermione, you sound more upset about it than I am,” said Potter, as best he could with hair in his mouth.

She made a high, miserable sort of whine and finally released him. “I’m worried about you,” she said redundantly. In a softer voice, “You’d tell me if something happened, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course I would,” he murmured.

Draco cleared his throat. They all turned to him, expressions wiped cold and blank. “If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll go ask Minerva what exactly we’re meant to be doing, shall I?”

Granger pursed her lips. “Actually,” she said, “it’s just us this time.” She turned to look at Potter. “Harry, did you bring the Cloak?”

“Yeah, it’s in our bag. Malfoy?”

Draco tossed it to him.

“Harry, why did _he_ have it?” Weasley whispered rather crudely.

Potter dipped his arm in past the elbow and pulled out the silvery folds of his Invisibility Cloak. It rippled in his arms like water. “Here it is, Hermione,” he said. “What’s the drill?”

“Same as last time,” she said in a different tone of voice, so easily sobered. “You wear the Cloak and watch from the inside. Ron and I will be spotting you from the window, and…” She took a visible pause here. “And Draco will be giving you instructions. I’ll cast the charm on you now, shall I?”

Shivering with the cold or perhaps something else, Granger lifted her wand and guided Draco’s and Potter’s hands together. Warmth. “ _Praemonstro tacite_ -”

Immediately, a faint buzzing commenced in Draco’s head.

“Try it out, then,” said Weasley.

Potter nodded and closed his eyes, apparently in concentration.

_Can you hear me?_

_I hear… some sort of animal… an ape, perhaps -_

Potter’s eyes flew open to meet his. _You’re an arse._

_What was that, Potter? I can’t hear you over the monkey noises. It would seem as though the ape is attempting to communicate… It says… that your name is Potter, and that… you are extremely thick in the head…_

“What are you laughing about? What’s he saying?”

Potter turned away and schooled his grin into something entirely unconvincing. Draco knew he looked smug. “Just something stupid.”

Granger looked caught between fondness for her friend and irritation. Draco preened.

“Alright,” said Weasley at length, saving her a response. “That’s settled, then. Harry, we’ll go first, and you can go on ahead when Malfoy gives you the OK.”

Potter nodded and pulled the Cloak nearer his chest. “Sounds good,” he said.

Granger took Weasley’s hand and, to his shock, the bony part of Draco’s elbow, and led them quickly to the end of the alley. She had a very firm grip.

_Careful she doesn’t cut off your circulation. You might pass out._

Draco resisted the urge to look back. He knew how Potter’s face would contort itself around his words.

_I wouldn’t mind if I did. Beats third-wheeling. Cor, I always wondered what it felt like to be you._

_Har-har._

Draco’s lips twitched, but he did not smile. It had been like this last time, too; somehow it was easier in the comfort of their own heads.

“Malfoy, slow down.”

Draco glanced back at Weasley with contempt. Then he sighed, and fell back into step with them. “Weasel, speed up,” he muttered sourly.

As they walked farther down the block, Weasley retrieved the backwards-lighter thing from where it had fallen deep in his robes and systematically blackened every pocket of yellow light. By the time they reached the drippy little pub, Draco’s eyes had adjusted to the dark.

He turned at an insistent prodding in his side. _This way_ , Granger mouthed at him.

They turned down another alley - it smelled strongly of baked bread and piss - and hastened to avoid a pair of stumbling, smelly drunkards. There was a ladder to their immediate right. Granger crouched along the dumpster as if she'd lost feeling in her nose.

“Go on, then,” she said. Weasley went up first, followed by Draco, and Granger.

_Alright, we’re up. You can start walking._

_Okay._

_Don’t kill yourself._

Draco pulled himself over the last rung, onto the roof.

_Okay._

“Draco, could you cast the spell?”

He stepped forward to where Granger and Weasley were crouched in the middle of the roof. The spell was softcore illegal - but nobody really seemed to care about that sort of thing if it was in the interest of the war effort. And it was.

“ _Denudo_.”

The roof gaped open like a mouth, and the three of them were bathed in dim light. Nobody inside so much as flinched.

“It’s like a one-way mirror,” said Granger, inexplicably.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s like -”

_I’m in._

“Potter’s in,” said Draco, effectively cutting off whatever inane ramblings Granger had been gearing up for.

“Tell him to walk slowly through the pub, see if he feels anything. It’s likely our target will be under some sort of diversion charm to keep away unwanted attention.”

Draco told him.

… _Okay, I feel something._

“Potter says he feels something,” said Draco.

“Good,” said Granger. “He knows what to do.”

_I’ve slipped through it. It’s them. They’ve got their hoods up, but I’m sure. I’m lowering their wards now so you’ll be able to see them._

Draco edged forwards and flicked his gaze over the room intently. From this angle, the people looked sort of small and dark. They moved around with the slurred weight of intoxication.

Granger’s tiny gasp made them look to where she was pointing. “There they are!” she whispered. “I knew it - that’s got to be Rookwood. Who’s that with him? The Carrows are both in Azkaban.”

“They couldn’t have escaped, could they?” said Weasley.

Granger shook her head emphatically. “God, no. You heard what McGonagall said - the security there is _insane_ these days. If it wasn’t impossible to escape a few years ago, it is now.”

“You think it’s a new recruit?”

“I don’t know… Seems unlikely, doesn’t it? But it’s the only explanation. We caught everyone. Well, except for the few they’re tracking in Spain. But we - Surely, there aren’t any more of them. Besides the ones who’ve…” Draco felt the glance she flicked his way. “I’m sure you’re right, Ron. New recruit makes the most sense.”

_Can you get a look at their faces?_

_Sorry, no. I think they’re wearing masks - and anyway, their faces are in shadow. ‘S not like I can pull their hoods back, or something. I always wondered if the Death Eaters wore masks because their faces were so horrible. That’s why I wasn’t surprised about you._

_Fuck you! You’re bloody jealous that my hair doesn’t stick up like gooseflesh!_

_Smells like denial._

_What are they even saying? Can you make out their voices?_

_No, their voices are under a charm. Er… They’re talking about buying things for their wives._

_Oh, shut up._

_I’m serious!_

_What kinds of things, Potter?_

_I don’t know, the Death Eater kind? Okay - hold on, tell Hermione this - they’re talking about going someplace._

_Really? Any names?_

_Um, I think it’s somewhere in France. They’re using… French names…_

_What? What French names?_

_I dunno, something like… Tor-do-Wotsit…_

_Tours du what, Potter? Concentrate!_

_Er…_

“Draco? Everything okay?”  
         
_Merlin help me. Potter, I need to come down there._  
         
No! Hermione said -  
         
Either I come down there or you do your fucking job! … Just tell me what they’re saying. It doesn’t matter whether you understand it or not. I speak French; I can translate.     

 _Alright, I’ll repeat after them best I can. Hold on._  
         
Fucking finally.  
         
“Draco?” Granger was at his side now, staring intently at his face and looking terribly curious.  
         
“Potter thinks they’re going somewhere in France. He’s -”

_There it was again - Tor-do-so-lay. That’s what they said, I think._

_Tours du - Tours du Soleil?_

“Draco?”

“Shut up a second!”  
         
_Yeah, that was it!_  
         
That’s -  
         
Tomorrow. They’re going there tomorrow.  
         
What? Are you sure?  
         
Positive. And - and they’re going to meet someone.  
       

        x

 

Potter had fallen asleep two hours ago in a position that squished his nose in an annoying way. His eyelashes kept moving like he was having a dream. Draco couldn’t fall asleep.

He stood up from his bed and shivered at the cold touch of the floor, but it was comforting in its familiarity. In the Slytherin dorms, they’d always had cold feet; the heat from the fireplace had proved inconsistent and weak, and anyway, there hadn’t been any sun. There had been a window stretching the length and width of the entire east wall of Draco’s dorm that opened to the lake. It’d cast wavy lines of tension on the walls, oscillating like drunken serpents, shifting visions of light. It used to give him nightmares, but Draco didn't cry out in his sleep like Greg and Vincent had.

He missed it, though he was loathe to admit to missing anything at all. It had grown on him like a rash. And he missed the colour green, for it had been everywhere. He missed his friends (who were not really his friends, anymore) and the manor and his mother and his old bedroom, and the Slytherin dorm, and Theo’s arrogance and Blaise waking everyone up at fucking five in the morning on his way to the showers, and he missed Pansy who played Celestina Warbeck in the common room and turned it up louder when people complained. He missed Vincent, who was dead, and Goyle, who was good as.

Moros was tapping at the window. Of course, thought Draco. Minerva was omniscient.

 

_D &H-_

_Stay where you are._

_-MM_

 

So they weren’t going. Draco knew how Potter would react, and it wasn’t going to be pleasant.

Draco thought about it: When Potter got angry, his face contorted and his eyes flashed. When Potter got angry at _Draco_ , the colours in his face became saturated - blood rose lushly to his cheeks, the odd light of his eyes were consumed. His nostrils flared; his fists clenched; his jaw twitched deliciously. Not deliciously. It was just rewarding, was all. To be the one to make him that angry.

Potter was the image of his father, Draco knew - Potter kept pictures of him and his mother in the top drawer of his bedside table. There was a whole book of them. Potter was shorter than his father and much kinder, but his skin was nearly dark as his and his hair stuck up in the same places and those stupid glasses perched the same way on his nose. People always said he shared his eyes with his mother, but he also had her smile. It was maybe more about the intent than the shape of it. Potter’s parents had been deeply, incredibly in love with each other. The way they looked at each other was adoring, the way a child might look at their pet kneazle, even after they’d been scratched.

Draco’s parents had never looked at each other like that. Not even in portraits.

“Malfoy?” His eyes blinked heavily. “What’s wrong?”

Draco looked quickly away. “Nothing,” he said. “Go back to sleep.”

 

x

 

As it turned out, Potter’s face did not do either of those things.

“Minerva sent an Owl while you were asleep.” Draco returned from the bedroom and pushed the parchment in the general direction of Potter’s chest (and his plate of toast).

“Shit.” He retrieved the letter from where it had fallen - now rather sticky - and read it in a matter of seconds. To Draco’s vast disappointment, Potter smiled.

Draco helped himself to a cuppa and the rest of Potter’s breakfast.

“Shoo,” Potter said half-heartedly. He put the letter down on the counter and went to sit in the living room.

Draco followed him. “Aren’t you angry?”

“Not really.” Potter looked tired of him. It made Draco fume. “Are you?”

He rolled his eyes and childishly did not respond. “You’ve an amazingly short temper, Potter, so either you’re smoking, or you’ve finally lost the plot.”

“I don’t care what you think. I don’t care what you think, and I don’t care if you hate me.”

That was the second time he’d said as much. Draco gave a very put-upon sigh. “I don’t hate you, Potter. I don’t care enough to hate you.”

Potter smiled. “Yeah? That makes two of us.” He perched lightly on the windowsill and swung his legs over to pull to his chest. His head lulled back so the light played at his throat. Then, as if he was surprised by his own words: “Malfoy, what _do_ you think of me?”

Draco scowled. “I think you’re an idiot,” he said.

 

x

 

“Malfoy, it’s raining again. Malfoy.”

He turned over in bed and held the pillow tighter to his face. He had woken up cross. “Alright! I heard you the first time.”

“Fine,” he went on angrily, “I just thought you might want to see the owl that arrived. I think it’s from your mother; the cursive’s all posh -”

Draco was standing, now. “What? Where is it?”

Potter sighed. “In the living room, just by the globe. Watch it!”

Draco did not apologise for displacing Potter’s glasses on the way down the stairs. It felt imperative that he get there before anyone else, before it was gone -

 

_Draco,_

_Haven’t a clue as to when this will arrive. Am of the opinion that Muggle correspondence is highly unpredictable and strange._

_Sweetheart, I know that you’re angry with me for sending you away. I can only assure you that it was done with greatest reluctance; above all, Draco, I must consider your personal safety. If I could have kept you, I would have. As it is, you are now safest in the hands of the Order._

_You should know that complications have arisen; unfortunately, the details must remain undisclosed. I trust you to see to that and to respect my silence on the matter._

_Take care, and know that humidity should be treated like the plague; you inherited the Black family’s hair and its proneness to curl. Unsure of how long you must remain where you are. For me, please be careful, and you have my word that I will do the same.  
        _

_Love,_

_Mother_

 

Draco scanned the parchment, and then again. His eyes could not seem to pry themselves from those few words: _Complications have arisen_. What did that mean? Complications? What complications?

“Potter, do you know anything about this?” He had hurtled up the stairs by way of instinct and was now standing at the foot of Potter’s bed, chest heaving beneath his shirt.

“Er, what?” Potter looked sort of silly with his eyes all googly like that. “I haven’t read it; it’s yours.”

Draco looked at the parchment in his hands. “Er.” Undisclosed. “Yeah, it is.” He folded it unevenly and slid it into his front pocket. He’d look at it again, later, and he’d write her back. He’d find her and ask her himself, if he had to.

Potter didn’t give him an odd look. He just sank farther down in bed, held his book (on Quidditch) so it tented over his nose. “Hm,” he said. His eyes were not googly anymore.

Draco stood there for too long. He stared at the floor, and then at Potter. “Do you want anything?”

“Hm? No, thanks.”

Potter was still in his jim jams. “Okay.”

         
x

 

“Potter, when’s the last time you took a shower?”

Potter was helping himself to a dripping slab of peanut butter toast when Draco found him. He had migrated to the living room. Actually, there was a streak of the stuff around his mouth, but Draco feared the repercussions of mentioning it.

“I took one yesterday. It’s all yours.”

“That can’t be true - I can smell you from here. You stink.”

Potter did not even look up. “Good,” he said.

“And stop using my shampoo. It’s not meant for your hair type.”

“What’s my hair type?”

“Deranged.”

Moros tapped at the window. Potter was nearly at eye level with him.

“I’ll get it,” he said. He pushed the window open and gave Moros a treat, and then he began reading. Draco came to look over his shoulder.

 

_D &H-_

_Location X, 1800. Hope you like Portkeys._

_-MM_

 

“You think she’s sending us to Tor-do Wotsit?”

“Tours du Soleil,” Draco said reflexively. “I don’t know. What’s the chance they’ll meet in the same place twice?”

“They’re barmy, Malfoy. I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Draco snorted. When Potter craned his neck to get a better look at him, Draco realized how close he was standing. He’d wondered why the air felt different.

“Well?”

“I’m going to make lunch,” Draco said with clarity. He turned on his heel and stalked to the kitchen with the intention of making a meal difficult enough to numb his other senses.

“Malfoy, it’s nine in the morning.”

He pretended he hadn’t heard him.

“Make me something, too, yeah?”

 

x

 

_Mother,_

_You have my word._

_Do you remember hiking in France? We should go back sometime, you and Father and I. Once all of this is over._

_I miss you._

_Draco_

 

x

 

Currently, Ron Weasley and Pansy Parkinson were collapsing on each other with laughter under an awning. Draco had to pinch himself.

“Oh, they’re always like that,” said Granger dismissively. “Ever since they worked together in Madrid.”

The sky was a sultry blue, hanging low in their eyes. It felt darker every time Draco looked up. It was also, er, sort of drizzling. And by the look of the clouds, it was going to get worse. Maybe Draco should’ve taken Potter’s advice, and his mother’s - his hair was beginning to feel damp, and the thin material of his shirt was becoming rather alarmingly translucent.

“Hermione... I don't want to be that person, but Pansy's a bit... you know.”

Granger shrugged. “She’s fun.”

Draco caught the way Potter eyed Pansy’s rather substantial chest with suspicion. “But… Hermione…”

“Potter,” Draco interrupted patiently, “Pansy is a lesbian.”

Potter’s face went extremely red, and then his eyes went round as saucers. “Oh!” he said.

“She’s also in a relationship.”

“Oh.” Then: “With who?”

“Millicent,” said Granger. “You remember Millicent, don’t you, Harry?”

“‘Course I do,” said Potter, unconvincingly.

“I turned into her cat, remember?” she prodded. “Remember? In second year?”

“What in God’s name are you on about, Granger?” Pansy had, evidently, migrated so close to Draco in the time he’d looked away that he could feel her breath on the nape of his neck.

“Ah, fucking hell!” He faced her with accusing eyes, more angry at himself for being so skittish. “Don’t do that,” he said, more fondly.

She smiled and leaned her head into his shoulder. “Sorry, Draco,” she cooed. “I didn’t mean to startle you. Wow, look at your hair! It’s like starlight…” She snuck her fingers in and played with it the way he liked.

Draco preened, easily flattered. “It’s genetics. I can’t help it.” He ignored the way Potter looked at him, then.

“I’m so envious of you.” She gave a terse sigh and fingered her own hair; it was black, and hung cleanly to the stripe of her jaw, but the humidity was lifting it above her head in a thin, frizzy halo; though, it wasn’t nearly as bad as Granger’s. “My hair can be so temperamental.”

“Pans, you should talk to Hermione. She knows loads about hair stuff,” said Weasley. _Pans?_

“Ohh, Pansy, there's a potion I've found that's really good for that," said Granger. "I've been doing some research into the ingredients and things, since there's been all these studies about the affects potions can have on your curl pattern - you know, damage you wouldn't get with muggle shampoo. Especially with natural hair like mine, you know, it's really important...”

Draco stopped listening eventually, bored to tears when the conversation became less about potions and more about what hairstyles said of one’s personality. He looked at Potter and Weasley, who were watching the pair of them with expressions of bewilderment and content, respectively.

“Any idea when Minerva will deign to show up?”

They both turned to him. “Er, should be any minute, now,” said Weasley. He looked around the alley as if he expected to find her hiding somewhere.

“Ron, are we going to Tor-do Wotsit?”

“Yeah, I reckon McGonagall must’ve wanted to get more information first. That doesn’t really make sense, though, does it? We’ve never waited for that sort of thing.”

A shriek pierced his words, and the three of them looked over in shock to see Granger laughing her bloody _arse_ off at something Pansy had said. Pansy had a conniving sort of smile on her face and caught Weasley’s eye to give him a look. Then Granger lost her balance, and Pansy’s focus was averted.

“What the fuck?” said Potter.

Weasley started laughing like this was perfectly funny and normal. “I love Pansy.”

“What?” said Potter.

He laughed harder. “Pansy’s lovely, I love her. She’s brilliantly mad. Harry, d’you reckon McGonagall will bring her with us to Tor-do Wotsit?”

“For fucks sake, it’s _Tours du Soleil_!”

“I dunno,” said Potter, ignoring Draco like the insolent little troll he was. “Probably.”

“Professor!” said Granger. They all looked.

There was nothing. There was a puddle, and a crisps wrapper, and a cat. Draco pinched himself a second time, and harder.

“The coast is clear, Professor. We’ve cast wards.”

In a very short time, Draco was looking - horrified - into the blinking, round, now distinctly feline eyes of Minerva McGonagall. He’d forgotten that she was an Animagus. Her hair was even greyer than it’d been the last time he’d seen her.

“Good evening,” she said in her trembling voice, nodding pleasantly to the group of them. “Kingsley should be here any moment with the Portkey.”

“Professor, are we going to the place Harry and Malfoy heard about? Tours du - Tours du Soleil, was it?” Weasley turned to Draco briefly for input. Draco inclined his head and felt a pleased smile turn his lips.

McGonagall spoke. “Excellent question, Ron. In fact, the Portkey will take us to a nearby location along the river Maronne, and from there we’ll watch the proceedings from a distance.” She turned to face all of them, then. Draco noticed the way her hands rose to steady her eyeglasses, the nervous motion of her eyes. There was a pity in her expression he hadn’t seen before. “If I may elaborate,” she began, “there is something I must share with you tonight. As you all know, the people we’re dealing with are among the most unstable and dangerous witches and wizards in the whole of England - if not the EU at large.” Draco frowned. Had this anything to do with that owl from Mother? “Several days ago, Harry and Draco found and reported to us the location of the Death Eaters’ next meeting. Kingsley and some of his most trusted Aurors went to the scene the next day to patrol the area. What he found was a… shocking discovery, indeed, though not wholly unexpected.” She took pause here, evidently less for dramatic effect than to take a fortifying breath. “As it turns out,” she said gently, “the remaining Death Eaters have chosen a new leader.”

Draco stared at her, and then he looked to Potter.

Pansy was the first to speak. “Excuse me - _what_?” she barked shrilly, demeanour slipping from her face like broken glass. “They couldn’t possibly, not in a million years be that daft!”

“Er…” Ron looked extremely confused. “Professor, they’d have to be mad. There can't be enough of them to organize, and nobody trusts them, anyway.”

Minerva regarded him soberly. "And yet," she said. "Well, the good news is that their movement will be easier to track. Mr. Weasley is right, I'm afraid. I can't imagine there's a Death Eater left who's entirely sane.”

Draco wondered if he still counted as a Death Eater in her eyes.

“Professor… Do the Aurors know who it is? Who the leader is, I mean.” Granger looked stricken.

"I'm afraid not, Ms. Granger." She looked at them speculatively. "You've reminded me, though. Until that ceases to be the case, we must act with caution to ensure the safety of those involved - all of you included. I therefore offer my full understanding to any of you who wish to step down from your position. It is an… emotionally trying revelation.” Her gaze, like Draco’s, wandered to Potter.

There was a resounding _crack_ that issued from beneath the awning. Kingsley Shacklebolt strode forward with a balled, ratty cloth in his hands. The Portkey.

“Kingsley,” Minerva greeted him, attention stolen. Draco looked at his feet.

“Evening, Minerva.” He fiddled with the package in his hands. “Well. Have you told them about the Death Eaters?”

“Just a moment ago,” she said. “I trust you have the Portkey?”

He carefully pulled the covering away to reveal the horribly chewed end of a pool noodle. It was about a foot long and very pink. “Right here, Professor.” He turned to the rest of them. “Are you all coming? It’s not a problem if any of you’d like to step out, this time around. We’ve plenty of Aurors at the scene already. Best to let us know now, though, because it’ll be really inconvenient and also mortally perilous if you decide, say, when we’ve just began tossing hexes that you’d rather be at home in front of the telly-vision,” he said, perfectly calm. “That said, we appreciate every bit of help we can get our hands on.”

“Er - Kingsley?” It was Weasley, face white as milk. “Excuse me for asking, but why can’t you and the rest of the Aurors just lock them up already? We know who they are, now, and it’s not like the odds are stacked against us.”

“Ron -” began Minerva, sounding embarrassed.

“Now, Minerva,” said Kingsley, “it’s a perfectly reasonable question.” Kingsley regarded Weasley with conviction. “Perfectly reasonable. Now, Mr. Weasley, the reason why the Aurors and myself are hesitating to apprehend the lot of them is that they’re our best shot at recovering any names we’ve missed. We’re waiting for them to reveal themselves in battle.”

“And exactly how long are you planning to wait?”

They all looked at Potter, who had spoken and whose face was knit with skepticism and an old, subliminal exhaustion. Draco ached for him.

Kingsley breathed deeply. “As long as we have to,” he replied honestly.

 

As Draco had suspected, the rain was not planning to relent in the near future; in fact, it was getting worse. His hair kept slipping back to his forehead, and his shirt clung to his body like a second skin, bones rattling with an insistent chill. It was not supposed to be this cold in August.

Potter kept looking at him.

“Yes, what is it?” he snapped, careful not to raise his voice should the Death Eaters happen to hear them over the thunder, rain, and approximately forty meters of trees.

Potter glanced quickly away. “You look like you’re cold,” he said, holding a branch back for Draco to pass.

“I am cold,” Draco said bitterly. “And ticked off. And wet.”

Potter looked for a long time at Draco’s chest. “I told you to bring a raincoat,” he said quietly.

Potter should have been angrier, and nastier. Draco couldn’t wrap his head around it. He scowled at his profile, because scowling was safe.

“I fail to see how your nagging makes me any drier.”

He fisted his hands in an attempt to generate some heat - his fingertips felt like cold grapes, every vein beneath his skin feeling penetrated by the breeze. He vaguely recalled something his mother had told him years ago about water cooling one’s body temperature quicker than air. She’d always insisted he wear a jumper beneath his raincoat; admittedly, the Manor grounds did get rather chilly in October.

“Here,” said Potter. Draco had been squinting at the circle of hooded figures beyond the trees, so the prodding at his arm came as a surprise. He turned a bit frantically to his left. Potter was holding something out to him.

Draco stared at the yellow lump with shock. He made himself look angrier. “What is that?”

Potter gave him a narrow look. “It’s a raincoat. Ever heard of one?” Wickedly, he made a show of gasping with feigned recognition. “Oh, that’s right - you don’t wear raincoats!”

“Give it here, Potter.” Draco snatched it from his hands and draped it over himself with great petulance. Immediately, the touch of the slicker was cold on his back, but then the enclosed air warmed around him; he pressed into it.

When he thought Potter wouldn’t notice, he glanced over at him. _Oh_. Potter wasn’t wearing a raincoat. So, this one had been his.

Draco whipped his head back around and focused at a point far ahead of him. He nearly stumbled over a tree root.

 

They weren’t allowed to go any closer. And they probably couldn’t, even if they tried. They’d woven their way, now, through a wood thicker than the Forbidden Forest and were crouching below a crumbled turret where several cloaked heads ducked in and out of sight. The towers were tall and grey and dripping with overgrowth; Draco had always held it very dear, since he’d come so often as a child with his mother and father. Though, he’d never stayed long enough for its colour to blaze in the setting sun, as it did now.

As a child, Draco’d had exactly one pair of trousers fit for tumbling around outdoors, and it was the same pair he brought every time they went hiking in France. Draco was often reprimanded for playing tag in his dress pants. It wasn’t his fault, really: Pansy had always been a manipulative little cow - so endearing - and had been very good at drawing Draco out of his bedroom. Generally, it had something to do with the prized blankie clutched in her meaty paws. Ickle Draco would’ve slain dragons for his blankie. Yuck.

The last time he’d been here - to the Tours du Soleil - was in third year, when his mother had suggested they make a stop on the way to the south of France. But he’d been in his neatly pressed trousers, the colour of scorched maize, and his father needed him to make a good impression on his “colleagues.” So, reluctantly, Draco had turned with them and left. Actually, the last time Draco had seen the castle itself was the summer after first year.

When he’d been very young, Draco had often complained to his parents about the clothes they bought him; they were stiff, he’d say, and too pretty to mark with dirt. Each time - and they were often in France - his mother had responded in the same measured way: “Les Malfoys ne se salissent pas en jouant.”

 _Malfoys don’t play dirty_. The irony was not lost on him.

The Death Eaters were moving, now. Draco watched with bated breath as they parted like the red sea for who could be no one but their leader - the respect in their movement was obvious, the composure in their leader’s posture a cold sort of pride. Draco had used to hold himself like that.

“Merlin, they’re creepy,” Weasley whispered to Granger.

“Shut your trap, Weasley! I can hear you from here!” Draco hissed at him.

Weasley went red, muttered, “You’re talking louder,” but then he went blessedly quiet.

Draco felt Potter’s eyes on his face, but he resisted the urge to look. Instead, he squinted at the hoods and tried in earnest to make something out. A mouth, a nose, a voice. But their faces were cast in shadow.

“Do they ever pull down those idiotic hoods?” muttered Pansy, who was picking at her nails and peering around a tree.

Potter looked at her in surprise, but he didn’t ask whatever question was on his face.

“Maybe they forgot their raincoats,” Draco mused. “Or maybe they’re really ugly.”

Weasley guffawed and seemed to beckon Draco’s eye contact, the way he stared at him. “Oh, so you’re allowed to talk?” He shook his ginger head. “Funny, you sounded like Luna for a second, there.”

“That’s nice.” Draco smiled lightly and held his gaze on the space in front of him. “I’d say we’ve proven good influences on each other.”

Potter frowned. “You’re joking.”

His chest fluttered. Draco cast him a bothered look. “Why would I? She makes a fantastic conversationalist.” A brief pause, then: “She was the only thing keeping me sane.”

“Keeping you -? Oh.”

“I think it’s wonderful that you and Luna are friends, Draco,” put in Granger. She was speaking to him as she would a house elf who’d discovered un-indentured work.

Draco smirked. “Yes, Granger, I quite agree.”

Potter was still looking at him sideways, in a way that made Draco want to demand what was so bloody interesting. “What?” he snapped, wishing Potter would stop it. He looked at him in the eyes.

“Nothing, I just…”

Draco forgot to listen. The low sun was shining on them at such an angle that the green of his eyes were shot with incredible light, glowing from the inside like trees in the sun.

“... that type of person.”

Potter was looking at him expectantly.

“Whatever,” said Draco. Pulse thrumming, he made his meanest face and looked away. He breathed deeply and evenly. What the fuck?

His body literally tensed with the effort not to look again.

_Alright, we’re mobilizing._

“They’re mobilizing,” Draco parroted to the rest of them. He closed his eyes, listening for Charlie Weasley’s voice.

“What? Already?” Potter looked stricken.

“Pans,” Draco drawled, ignoring Potter entirely, “be a dear and grab Weasel and company by the ears, won’t you? We’ll need to make this quick.”

“Malfoy, don’t call him that.”

“And don’t forget your purse, Granger. I expect it’ll come in handy.”

_Fuck - nevermind, get out. Get the fuck out of there._

Draco froze. “We -”

A ground-shaking _crash_ issued ahead of them. Clouds of smoke and dust rose from the source: a crumbling turret, red sparks, and a scream.

“Get out!” Draco shouted. “Get out, get out, get out!”

_What the fuck just happened?_

_The Death Eaters. They knew we were coming._

“Oh, shit!” said Pansy, and she hurtled ahead of them clutching her hands over her head. “Weasley, fucking run!”

Weasley and Granger took off after Pansy, weaving through trees like they’d done it before. Draco watched as Weasley pulled out his wand and flung a shield charm over his shoulder.

Draco ducked in a shower of rubble and turned around.

Fuck, but the kid was an idiot.

“Potter,” he growled, “let’s _go_.”

Potter whipped his head around to face him, stunning Draco with the slant in his eyes. His hand was clutched at his pocket, knees raised in the grass. “No,” he said fiercely. “I can’t.”

The towers were falling. Draco felt the ache in his heart, so weighted by his feelings for the castle and this boy. His hair was tumbling into his face like spanish moss, his skin was flushed and terrible. He looked insane.

“You can,” he remembered to say. “You’ve done enough, Potter! You’ve done enough!”

A shock of red hit Potter in the arm. He fell back, teeth bared in agony. Draco stared in horror at his inflamed skin - it was oozing pus, bubbling grotesquely, rain hissing where it touched him, and when Draco looked to his face, his eyes were closed.

“Holy fuck!” Draco said shrilly. He stooped and hesitated less than a second before scooping Potter awkwardly into his arms. “Merlin, you’re lighter than Pansy,” said Draco, and he took a step up the incline.

Green light shot past his head. He cursed and nearly dropped him. Adjusting Potter’s dead weight in his arms, Draco struggled past the shield Weasley had cast and found his wand. He disapparated.

 

x

 

“Christ, Potter.”

Draco had carried him to the nearest fireplace in France, and then he had apparated south, and now they were sitting in the safe house, Potter’s eyes unmoving from the grey ceiling and Draco bent over his naked chest. His arm and upper abdomen were marred with raw, bleeding craters. The dent in his cheek was the only indication of his pain.

Draco held his wand to another wound and whispered, “ _Mitigo_.”

Potter’s eyes closed briefly, and when he opened them, they shined with tears. The wound was still open - it would need a salve to combat the poison - but it looked less angry and red. There were only a few left to go.

“I don’t need your help,” came, murmured thickly. Draco did not move his eyes from the gash he was tending, for fear of what he’d see on Potter’s face. “I wish you hadn’t interrupted me. Then this wouldn’t have happened.”

Draco set his jaw. Maybe it was his fault. Maybe Potter would not be in pain now if Draco had left him alone. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time.

“I’m sorry,” said Draco.

Potter just looked at him.

His skin was the colour of milky tea, and the blood was so vivid it made him dizzy. The salve did the trick, though. Gently, Draco spread it on the patches of mutilated skin, watching as it shimmered and soothed. The smell of herbs and blood was making his stomach roll. And when he shifted, he could smell Potter, and that was even worse.

Draco corked the jar when he’d finished and watched: they were scabbing already, looking less like the surface of a porous rock and more like he’d scraped himself several times and at different angles. Draco hummed lightly and doused a cloth in rubbing alcohol - the Muggle way - and wiped away the blood, careful to avoid the open wounds. He could feel Potter’s eyes on his face.

“What?” he said without thinking. He blushed.

“You’re good at that,” said Potter.

Draco looked at the petroleum jelly in his hands, the coloured bottles on the sink, Potter’s glistening skin. “Of course I am.”

Potter didn’t laugh or grumble like he’d wanted him to. Instead he breathed deeply and moved his arms behind his head.

“Hey -!”

“They don’t hurt any more.”

“I need to bandage those, you ponce!” Draco pulled at Potter’s wrist until he relented and held his limp arm to the light, squinting. Potter had tiny freckles, loads of them, so light it was hard to tell. “You’re lucky you didn’t mess it up, just then.”

“Mess what up? They’ve scabbed over, haven’t they?”

Draco sniffed petulantly. “That’s what _you_ think,” he said, even though it was true.

Once he’d finished bandaging Potter’s arm and chest, he leaned back to admire his handiwork. Potter bent his arm back and forth, considering.

“Alright,” said Draco. “You’re all finished, now. Oh, wait -” He pulled out his wand and cast a quick charm over the bandages. “ _Now_ it’s finished.”

“What’d that spell do?”

“Er, just waterproofed the bandages. Maybe now you’ll take a shower, for once.”

Potter smiled down at his arm. “I shower every morning, Malfoy.”

He snorted. “Could’ve fooled me.”

Potter sighed quietly. “You just sleep in late, so you don’t see me.”

 _So you don’t see me_. Despite his best intentions, Malfoy’s skin heated pleasantly. Hm.

Potter leaned back in the kitchen chair and did put his arms behind his head, this time. “You’re funny. You take ages in the shower, and then the whole bathroom smells like your posh hair potions. Why can’t you neglect your hair like the rest of us?”

Draco turned and saw him grinning. He smirked, teasing him. “Envious, are we?”

“You wish.”

“What? Am I wrong?” Draco couldn’t help his smile, now.

“ _Yes_ , actually, you are.”

“Am I?”

“ _Yes_!”

Potter looked flushed and exasperated and, well, a bit happy. Then he saw Draco staring, and he seemed to realise himself. He coughed and looked away.

Draco sighed and turned his attention to putting away the supplies. “You shouldn’t be so stubborn, Potter. It’ll get you into trouble.”

This had the desired effect of making Potter sarcastic. “Wow, thanks, Malfoy. That’s brilliant advice, coming from you.”

Sarcasm was safe. Bickering, scowls, smirks were safe, were okay, were familiar.

Draco closed the cupboard and gathered the other things in his arms to put in the bathroom. “Glad you think so,” he managed. “I’m going to put these away. Do try to control yourself while I’m gone.”

“I don’t know, Malfoy. I sort of fancy the idea of ripping up furniture and things like a feral crup.”

“Ha, ha,” said Malfoy. “You are so funny.”

He left him to it.

 

x

 

He woke early that morning. The shower was running, and when the door opened - before he shut his eyes to the sensation and what it stood for - Draco saw wet skin and smelled peppermint and tasted dry and felt warm and heard water, everywhere, dripping on the floor, the windows, roof, water, rain.

 

x

 

_Draco -_

_I love you so much. Know how much I love you, and that my love for you is unyielding and forever. Everything I do is out of love for you. Please know this._

_Your Mother_

 

x

 

Draco was making toast for himself in the kitchen when Potter came in, looking like Death himself, if Death were a fan of the Chudley Cannons. Jesus Christ.

“Why are you _wearing_ those? Who hurt you? Are you actually, physically blind?”

Potter sneezed and made for the cupboard. “Wonderful, aren’t they?”

“I'm going to be sick. I always knew you were a sadist.”

Potter pulled a tin of Yorkshire out and a mug. “Hmm,” he said, unbothered. He glanced out the window; it was raining steadily, though the sky was unusually light. “Rain’s not too bad,” he said. He poured water from the kettle and went for the sugar cubes. “I’ll check on the plants.”

Draco frowned, watching Potter as he dropped three sugars in his mug and another in his mouth. “But you’re ill.”

“I’m surprised that you aren’t. You looked like a drowned rat last week.”

It dawned on him: the rain jacket. He looked to the coat tree where it hung.

“It’s fine. It’s not like it can get any worse.”

Draco eyed him incredulously. " _You_ looked like a drowned rat. I looked like Gilderoy Lockhart in latex." Potter feigned a gag, or maybe he didn't. "Also, you’re not going outside.”

Potter rolled his eyes, no longer indulgent. “Leave it, Malfoy. I don’t need your help.”

Draco pursed his lips and attempted to even his breaths. _Yes, you do!_ he wanted to tell him. “Be that as it may, it so happens that it is _raining_ outside and it’s _cold_ and also you look like you’ve been raised from the dead. Which, I realise that you have, but you were less hideous the first time around. I didn't think it was possible.” He thought about it. "Must be the pyjama bottoms."

“Oh, hop off! Ron gave them to me.”

“And I reckon he’s given you that mingy woollen jumper, as well?”

Potter coloured, and then he sneezed. “No, his mum did.”

Draco put a hand over his eyes. “It’s worse than I imagined.”

“Shut up, Malfoy,” Potter said on a laugh.

“You should be resting. Wear the bloody jumper and… pyjama bottoms, if you like, but I can't let you leave the house. I - We can't use magic if you keel over.”

"It's fine, Malfoy. I feel fine. I'll recover.”

“No, Potter, you are not fine. People who are ill need to act like it and drink lots of tea and not go outside in the rain. If you go out like that, your immune system will be weak, and instead of helping you fight off the cold, it’ll get _worse_. Didn’t your Muggle relatives ever tell you that?”

“No. I don’t know.” He sneezed. “I don’t want to talk about them.”

“Surely muggles aren't so inept as to believe - Surely they brought you soup and cast humidifying charms, or, whatever, I don't know what they'd use. But didn't they?”

Potter rolled his eyes to the ceiling, arms crossed and looking ready to be done with this conversation. “No, Malfoy, they didn’t.”

Draco hesitated. Was he lying out of sheer mulishness? “Alright, but they didn’t let you go gallivanting in the _rain_.”

“Leave it, Malfoy.”

“Did they?”

“Please just leave it.” Potter looked to the window. Draco followed his gaze, but it was only raining. Potter looked tired, and tense, and when he sipped from his mug, it fogged up his glasses.

“Fine,” said Draco. “Drink your tea. If you like those plants so much, I’ll do the gardening myself.”

Potter looked at him. “You don’t know how.”

“I’d wager I know myself better than you do, Potter. Anyway, Mother’s been teaching me since before I could walk. She didn’t trust the house elves with her orchids.”

Potter looked at him. “Oh.”

“Off with you. Go back to sleep.” Draco eyed the mug in his hand. “And sugarcubes do not count as breakfast.”

 

Gardening wasn’t so bad. The rain wasn’t so bad. Actually, Draco recognised for the first time the effort Potter had put into these plants in the front yard - regular things, like basil and rosemary, and some hardy vegetables, and a thriving bed of asiatic lilies. Something to do with his mum, he thought. When Draco finished - hoping he’d done enough, because the bit about Mother teaching him was a lie - he cut a few of the flowers and put them in a vase inside. It made the living room look… slightly pinker.

What his mother had taught him as a child was delicacy, and later, endurance. And always love.

The letter scared him. He wondered what it meant, and what would happen. Selfishly he found himself planning escape - he could apparate home, to the Manor, and find her there, and protect her. His mother. How he missed her.

Moros was at the window.

 

_H &D -_

_Don’t know how long until further contact. Stay where you are. Sorry._

_-MM_

 

So that was it, then. They didn’t have a plan. More likely than not he and Potter would be stuck here for weeks before Minerva and Kingsley felt safe enough to proceed. And, Draco realized, they were more or less back at square one. Except, worse: this time, they had something real to fear.

The last time he’d been really scared, he’d been sixteen - a child. His life had been at risk, and at the time, that had meant something to him. In seventh year, all he’d cared for were his mother and his friends and Harry Potter.

It sucked to be in love with Harry Potter. Here was the problem: you’re five, you’re six, you’re seven, your friends tell you Harry Potter is your age and he defeated the Dark Lord, well he didn’t mean to do it he was a baby, he’s still really brill, you ask your mother and she tells you ask your father, you ask your father and he tells you what to do, you’re ten, you’re eleven, Harry Potter is beautiful and mean. You are thirteen years old and you don’t think Harry Potter is so brill, you think he’s an overrated tosser, you think his eyelashes are like the dust that falls from your charcoals, you think his eyes are like basins of water and the moss on trees and stone, you think his mouth is asking for it the way he sucks on his lip and sucks on quills and yells and snarls and sasses, you’re fifteen, think he’s pathetic the way he looks at Cho, but you think if he smiled at you you wouldn’t deserve it, you are sixteen years old and you’re gay and you cry in the shower and you cry in your four poster and you cry in her lap and you cry in the bathroom, and he cuts you, but he didn’t mean to. It doesn’t matter. If he’d meant to cut you, you could stand it. It would have been better than this: pity, and obsession. You’re seventeen, you are clawing, and you are so far away.

So whatever. Draco had a long time to get over it. If seven years hadn’t been enough, maybe eight. Maybe nine. Maybe he would die with it. So what? Loads of people were in love with Harry Potter. Ginny Weasley was in love with Harry Potter; in fact, Harry Potter was in love with Ginny Weasley. And that made him safe.

         
When Potter came down the stairs, he had the flush of sleep in his cheeks and hair that stuck out awkwardly. Draco smiled into his tea.

“Deigned to grace us with your presence, have you?” He tented his book on the side table, hoping Potter would come sit with him. “You look like shit.”

Potter gave him a look. “I feel it, too.” He went to the kitchen and began to noisily fix himself a cup of tea. “What time is it?”

Draco nearly cast a tempus, and then he checked the clock on the mantel. “Nearly three.”

Potter made a noise of surprise. “Cor, I slept for a long time. Why didn’t you wake me?”

“No reason to. It’s not like you’ve anything to wake up for.”

Potter didn’t answer.

“I mean -” But he didn’t know how to finish.

“Tea?” said Potter. Draco was grateful and sorry at once.

“No, I’ve got some,” he said. He heard Potter knock something ceramic. “Stop using up all the sugar. You’ll sweat pumpkin juice, at this rate.”

“No, actually, I’m going to do what I want. If you want sugar, get your own.”

Draco grumbled. “You’re a twat.”

The sun stuttered in the window, and suddenly the right half of his body was bathed in incredible warmth. Draco leaned into it, feeling his chest lift in submission. When he looked up, Potter was frowning at him.

“What?”

“This is weird.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Brilliant.”

“I mean, it’s weird that I feel safe enough to sleep here, and eat breakfast, and stuff. Considering things.” Potter sat in the armchair farthest him - though leaning in Draco’s direction.

Oh, fuck him. “Lets not forget that _you’re_ the one who nearly killed me, Potter.”

“What - It’s -”

“I spent hours in the infirmary that night, Potter. Do you know I still have the scars?”

Potter’s expression became slightly hysterical. “God knows you deserved it!” He looked stricken. “That’s not what I meant to say, it’s -”

“I deserved it?”

“No! That’s not what I meant. You would’ve cast the Cruciatus, if I hadn’t stopped you!”

“Pity, that,” he said acidly.

“Fuck you. I - This is - I can’t believe I thought -”

“Look, Potter. I _know_ I tried to hurt you. I know I hurt you, and that I made you and your other Mudblood-sympathizers fucking miserable for seven years, and I was a big arsing ponce for it, and an idiot, because Merlin knows you lot were already doing the job for me, but honestly, I was a goddamn kid, and that’s how I was raised! My father went to Azkaban, Potter! Do you know what that feels like, to spend your whole life idolising someone and have them pulled out from under your feet like a rug?”

Draco closed his eyes, feeling really sort of tired and hoping Potter’s silence meant he wouldn’t reply.

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Draco looked at him. “I was trying to think about - but I was raised by Muggles, see. But I knew I had my dad. And I think that I idolised him and my mum both, but, you know how it is, when you’re really young and you think everyone who you don’t like your dad wouldn’t like either, and I don’t really know how it was for you, but I guess I always imagined him looking down on me or whatever and getting really angry on my behalf. Actually, now that I think about it, I was in third year or something when my second aunt, or something, said something really horrible about my mum and dad, and I - well, I accidentally inflated her with my mind so that she floated out the window like a Goodyear blimp -”

“ _What_?”

“Yeah, and then I had to run away afterwards so my uncle wouldn’t literally strangle me. But then also - this is what I meant to say - I was doing occlumency with Snape, and I looked in his pensieve and saw my dad, um, giving him a hard time, and then Snape said some really mean stuff about him when he found me, and, I mean, I really wanted to kill him. I thought my dad was untouchable, or something, I don’t know, and I feel sort of bad for it now because I guess Snape was, like, in love with my mum his whole life…”

Draco paled.

“Yeah, I thought I might name one of my kids after him, if I have any. Snape was one of the bravest men I’ve known. But anyway, yeah. I get what you mean.”

“Potter, I will personally see to it that no child of yours be burdened with the name _Severus_.”

Potter frowned. “Maybe you’re right. Albus, then.”

“Absolutely not.”

“What? It’s not so bad.”

“Do your kids a favour and leave the names to Ginevra, Potter.”

Potter chewed his mouth. “It won’t be her. I mean, she won’t be having my children.”

Draco felt queasy.

“She won’t be my wife.” Potter watched him carefully. “Well? Don’t you have something nasty to say about it?”

“I frankly don’t care enough about your personal life to point out the obvious, no.”

Potter narrowed his eyes at him skeptically. “Alright, then. What’s the obvious?”

Draco glanced at the ceiling, enjoying himself a bit. “Oh, just that you’ve had a rather late onset Oedipus complex for the past four years, and it’s about time you got over your ginger fantasy. You want a litter of redheads and poverty and quilts. You want to live like Arthur Weasley.”

“That’s not true.”

“Face it, Potter. You’ve an obsessive personality, and you were abused as a child. Of course you’ve made it your goal to adopt the life some of someone else.”

“Shut it, Malfoy. You think I don’t know what I am? I can’t have anything.” He looked Draco in the eyes, almost accusingly. “I can’t have a quiet home or a noisy home or a crowded home, because I can’t have a home, because I saved the bloody wizarding world. I will never be allowed to have that. If I have children, it will be because I’ve…” He seemed to trailed off. “If I have children, I’ll name them all after dead people with unfortunate names, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

“That’s what _you_ think.”

Potter’s face changed in a way Draco had never seen before: vexed, puzzled, endeared. Draco played it up to look more endearing. “You know, Malfoy - You act like this big bully, but you don’t make any sense.”

Draco immediately scowled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean… I don’t know. I used to hate you so much. I mean… I don’t hate you anymore, I guess. I mean, I don’t. But it doesn’t make any sense that you’re like this. You weren’t like this in school. You weren’t so unintimidating.”

“Excuse me?”

“I didn’t mean it that way!” Potter panicked at the look on his face. “I just mean your company’s a lot more enjoyable when you’re not plotting to kill people.”

Draco’s gaze shuttered, and he saw that Potter noticed. “I know what you think of me, Potter. Save your breath.”

“That’s not what I -” Potter rubbed his temples and hissed a sigh. “Sorry. But you _did_ try to kill people. I know you didn’t want to, though. I know it was hard for you.” It looked like it took him an effort to say this. “No, I mean… I’m really sorry, Malfoy. I should have done something that night, after I… When you were in the hospital wing, I should have visited - I mean, I should have offered you help, or told you to talk to Dumbledore, or something.”

“That’s fine,” said Draco, hastily.

“It’s not,” said Potter, looking miserable. “Oh, God. That night, I went back to the common room and had a goddamn laugh with my mates, and Ginny gave me an excuse and I let her. I _wanted_ her to. God, Malfoy, I’m so sorry. And then I kissed her the same goddamn week, I don’t know why I’m telling you this, and it was so easy to blame you. I’m sorry, Malfoy. You didn’t have more choice than I did. Your mother really loved you, you know. She risked her life to protect you. I admire that. My mother did the same for me. Gryffindors - sorry, I know this is - well, we aren’t so different, you know, it’s just that we’re brave for different reasons. But my mother and your mother were brave for the same reason. Your mother really loved you, and… I didn’t like her very much, but she loved you, so you must be… I’m sorry I didn’t help you.” Potter’s voice was hoarse and shallow. He laughed. “God, I need to shut up.”

Draco coughed. “Yeah, you do.”

A car drove past them out the window: the crisp sound of its tires breaking rain. Draco watched.

“Guess that’s sorted, then,” he said.

“Guess so,” said Potter, sounding quiet.

Draco opened his book and focused on the sound. It took him a few tries to understand what he was looking at.

 

x

That night, Draco took his time in the shower. Potter was already asleep, or trying to be; when Draco’d left for the bathroom, he’d had his lamp off and a narrow arm bent over his quilt.

Under the hot stream, he thought of him, and was ashamed of his body’s response. His cock was pink and interested between his thighs, and Draco passed a hand down his stomach, and he succumbed.

He tried to keep his eyes open and his mind clear, but his back hit the damp wall and he couldn’t really help it - he imagined sharp elbows and soft wrists and how he might look angry and naked. Would his eyes close at climax? Would he still or shudder, and afterwards, would he press close? Potter was the type of person who’d - _oh_ , fuck - the type of person who’d be earnest in his pleasure, and maybe raw, definitely warm in his hands and sweaty. Skinny - underfed - but lithe, rich in taste.

Draco stilled. Hand posed limp at his hip, his lids closed on his hot eyes, and the tightness in his throat became overwhelming, so that he had lean heavily with his hands and back and bend with the upheaval of this terrible feeling, so deep in him it felt like throwing up. The water felt outside him, as though touching him through plastic. It took too long for him to breath again, and when he did, his head fell under the water again, and it soaked his hair and dripped around his head. Harry Potter. It hurt so bad.

Draco brought himself off quickly, jerking and clenching with the heat of his release. He rinsed his hands and the spunk off his chest and then the tiles. Fuck, but he was tired. As he washed himself, his thoughts came delicately, feeling slippery as his fingers and the soap in his hair.

He turned the shower off and dressed slowly.

When Draco emerged into the cool air of their bedroom, Potter was standing at the window with a letter in his hands. He looked up at Draco’s sound of interest.

“It’s McGonagall,” said Potter, sounding confused.

Draco crossed the room and accepted the parchment from his extended hand.

 

_H &D-_

_We’ve caught him - sorry for the confusion. Explanations due. Location A, tomorrow morning._

_-MM_

__

“Weird.” He fingered it a moment before he set it on the windowsill. “That was quick.”

Potter shrugged beside him. “Must’ve gotten lucky. I wish they’d let us help.”

“Potter,” said Draco, casting a slightly horrified look at him, “you’re _injured_.”

He picked at the gauze, and then his fringe. Draco took a subtle step away from him.

“Um,” said Potter. He looked away at the letter, hand clasped over his elbow. “So, we’ll leave early, then.”

“Yes. That’s what morning means, I’d imagine.”

Well, so… Okay.” Draco thought Potter might be trying to say something, so he waited. Potter took a long time, breath held in the cold. “I’m sorry, it’s just. I want to talk to you.” He cringed.

“That’s -”

“I mean, I’m sorry, but I can’t fall asleep. If you’re tired, that’s fine.”

Draco eyed him. “I’m not tired. I need to change your dressings, anyway.”

Potter inhaled sharply. “My what?”

“Your bandages.”

“Oh, right.”

Draco went to the bathroom again, which was damp and cold, now, and took the roll of gauze and things with him back to Potter. He was sitting on the edge of his cot.

Draco worried about the intimacy of the thing, so he kneeled at Potter’s toes and took his arm at eye level. “Does it hurt?”

“Yeah,” said Potter. “But it’s not that bad.”

Draco frankly didn’t believe him. He took care to be gentle about unwrapping it. It stuck to his skin. God, it was bleeding again. Draco’s thumb found his elbow and stroked him as he peeled it away.

Potter was breathing heavily. “Are you almost done?”

“No, sorry. Talk to me, if you want; it helps.”

“Okay,” he said, voice thin. “What should I talk about?”

“I don’t know, you’re the one who wanted to.”

“Fine. You’re right.” His knuckles blanched around the bed frame. “I’m sorry for freaking you out earlier. I don’t know where all that came from.”

Draco considered this. “You didn’t freak me out.”

“Really? I thought you looked a bit pale. I guess you are a bit pale, though.”

“That must’ve been it.”

“I guess. I’m not usually like that, just so you know. I have a bit of a temper, actually.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

Potter kicked him. “Shut it. You’re turning into me.” He sighed. “Thanks for doing my arm up, and stuff. And I’m sorry I didn’t say that earlier.”

Draco balled the soiled dressings and dropped them in a plastic bag. “Stop apologising. Wait a moment.” He went to wash his hands, and, thinking better of it, called over his shoulder, “Don’t you think about moving.”

He returned with a clean washcloth and flicked his eyes to meet Potter’s briefly. “It’s going to hurt,” he said. “Sorry.” Then he concentrated on applying the isopropyl alcohol, fingers reaching to grip his elbow again when he hissed.

“Fucking _hell_!” he sobbed.

“Won’t take long,” Draco assured him. “Tell me about Ginevra.”

“Um,” he said, “I don’t really want to talk about it. Actually, yeah, I do. Fuck,” he breathed rapidly, “I think she’s gay. And I think I’m gay, too.”

Draco’s blood ran cold.

“Or maybe bisexual, I don’t know. But anyway, Ginny - ah - Ginny and I were going to talk after the war, about getting back together, but it’s the thing where… I see Ron and Hermione, and I don’t feel that way about her. Not even a little bit. I don’t know - now that I think about it, I don’t think she’s actually gay. I think I’m just projecting. She loved me, I think. I mean, I loved her, but as a… nice-looking mate more than anything else. And I feel sort of toxic when I think about her, and I think it’s because she was such a haven for me, during the war. And now I just want to be alone. Don’t you?”

Draco moved to the Vaseline. “No. Potter, have I become your absolver of sins, or something?”

He laughed. “No, I think I’m just getting cabin fever. But it’s nice to talk to you. You’re so grumpy.”

Draco frowned. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

Potter laughed. He scratched his ankle with his free hand. “Could you get my glasses for me?”

Draco found them on the bedside table.

“Thanks.” He leaned back on his wrists for a while, so that the air was silent save for the rain outside and Draco’s heart in his ears. Then Potter cleared his throat. “So, what do you think of me being gay?” he said testily.

“I don’t,” he lied.

“You - Oh. Don’t you think I’m a pervert or something? I was under the impression that pureblood culture was -”

“No one gives a fuck what purebloods get up to in the bedroom if they’re married and fertile. It’s pretty common, actually, with all the arranged marriages. You know how it’s like. Softcore incest, and all. Appearance is everything.” He hesitated. “Sorry to be crass.”

“That’s okay. Wait, so did your mum and dad ever - or, did _you_ ever…”

Draco flicked his eyes up and down again. He couldn’t tell what Potter’s expression was. “No,” he said finally. “Why? Have you?”

“No.” His thigh shook, and Draco saw that his foot was bouncing anxiously. “Do you want to?”

“ _What_?”

“I mean -” Potter said urgently. Draco had stuttered in his work and his chest. “Do you want to - Did you ever want to do that? With a bloke? Sorry, you don’t have to answer that. Actually, I’d rather if you didn’t.”

So Draco didn’t answer.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean… I think I’m still reeling a bit, or marveling, is all. Because I haven’t told anyone yet. And I don’t know anyone gay besides Charlie, and… maybe my godfather.”

"Weasley’s brother?”

“Yeah. He trains dragons. I don’t think he’s with anyone, but there’s loads of fit blokes working with him, and they’re all rugged and stuff.” He started laughing, inexplicably. “Ron told me that when Charlie came out to all of them, Fred and George asked if he had orgies in the practice tents. Cor, they must’ve been about eleven.”

Draco smiled despite himself. He remembered the twins.

“You know, you really ought to call me Harry, seeing as I’ve come out to you, and stuff. Also, it’ll be funny with Ron and Hermione around.”

He tucked the last of the gauze in and leaned back to admire his work. “Alright. But only in front of them. It’s only funny when it’s at your expense.” He gathered the rest into his arms and went into the bathroom.

“How’s it at my expense?”

He looked at his own pale hands under the faucet and the pink water. Potter’s blood was on his hands. “It’s a foul thing to call someone.”

Potter laughed aloud. Draco heard him move across the mattress.

“Are you going to sleep?”

“I don’t know, probably. Why?”

Draco turned off the light in the bathroom. It was darker than he’d realized; he moved slowly to his bed, feeling blind and silly. “Fuck, I can’t see anything.”

Potter laughed. “Here, I’ll -” He reached out and touched him. “I’m right here.”

“Oh.” Potter was so warm.

His fingers slipped away. “Careful.”

Draco shuffled forward, and then his toe hit the bed frame. “Ow, fuck.”

“You alright?”

“Stubbed my bloody toe.” He stumbled into bed. “Literally everything is out to get me.”

Potter sighed across the room. “Always the dramatics.”

“I mean it.” He pulled the quilt to his chin and turned on his side, away from him. “Damn hippogriff. Ugh, I wish you’d kill me in my sleep already.”

“Likewise. Why haven’t you?”

“Killed you?” His eyes were feeling sort of heavy. “Dunno. Amusing, I ‘spose.”

“What?”

"Dunno. I’m going to sleep.”

“Haha, okay.” Potter stopped talking for a few seconds. Draco listened to the rain. “Um… Night, Draco. That sounds weird.”

“Fuck’s sake. Night, Potty.”

x

Before it happened, Draco woke up, and the world felt different. It was like clotted glue had been scraped off the cap, and now it was dripping, viscous and affecting as honey, across Draco’s face and around him. Harry Potter was gay. How strange.

He and Potter sat outside with their tea and toast for breakfast on the freshly laundered quilt, because it was dry outside and sunny. The jumper Potter had on was white and mottled, and made his skin look sort of pretty in the light. He was smiling a lot.

“I guess we should go soon,” said Draco. He didn’t really want to get up.

“She said morning. We have time.”

“It _is_ morning, though.”

Potter sighed. “I don’t know, when does morning, like, technically end?”

Draco thought about it. “Well, it’s not like there’s another name for late morning, there’s just noon and after-noon, so I think it’s safe to say we’ve got until eleven-ish. But maybe that’s cutting it too close.”

“You think it was someone we know?”

Draco looked at him. Potter was staring fixedly at the grass and pulling at it like hair. “Maybe,” he offered. “Why?”

“I don’t know, I just wish this was over with.” He pulled at the grass harder. “I mean, I just mean that it doesn’t make sense to keep looking if we already know who they all are. I guess I’m just tired of looking for them. Well, they’ve found him now, I guess. But do you know what I mean?”

Draco felt warmed by his admission. “I know what you mean,” he assured him. Bracing himself - “Can I tell you something? I didn’t let on, but you really surprised me with the gay thing. I never suspected a thing.”

When Potter was silent for a moment, Draco felt guilt and terror shock through him like terrible lightning. Ooh, he really shouldn’t have said that. “Well, it’s not really a _thing_ , is it? I never - I mean, I don’t find it to be very important.”

Draco tilted his head consideringly, still feeling a bit swollen. “No, I s’pose not. Sorry I mentioned it.”

“Don’t be.” He thought he saw Potter smile. “I’m as shocked as you are, honestly.”

“Really?” He hoped Potter would say more.

“Yeah.” His brows were knitted, not unpleasantly. “Well… I remember my cousin - he’s a little brat, I think I told you about him - he teased me after Cedric died, because I was saying his name in my sleep. Because, you know. But that’s all I remember about gay stuff from when I was young.” He sighed deeply. “God, I’m exhausted.”

Draco cast a tempus. “Ten thirty. Should we leave soon, d’you think?”

Potter closed his eyes and stretched his arms and his legs far as they would go, cheeks pinking in pleasure, toes curling and his shirt lifting and Draco looked away. He appeared standing at Draco’s side.

“Yeah, alright. Let’s go.”

The journey was quick and nauseating, and 12 Grimmauld Place had the veil of death about it and the wet chill of pregnant clouds. The sky itself was completely white. Draco’s arms were textured with gooseflesh and soft white hair. When he let go of Potter’s arm, worse still, he shivered.

“Cold?”

“Obviously.”

Potter plucked at the fabric around Draco’s arms. “This feels good enough. Maybe you’re just bad at being warm.”

“No,” he moaned, “it’s the jumper that’s bad at being a jumper!”

The door opened.

“Harry,” she said. Draco eased his jaw. He thought about stepping around her. Her hair was so red and right there. Draco had never liked her.

“Hi, Gin,” said Potter. He sounded different when he spoke to her, more peaceable. “Can we come in? It’s a bit nippy out.”

“Yeah, for sure.” She stepped out of their way, smiling brightly, and Draco moved eagerly around her. Slowly, it came to him that the house was not exactly warm, and that actually, the dead air was not so vastly nicer than the breeze.

“They’ve got a fire going downstairs,” Weasley - oh, this was going to get complicated with so many of them - said to Potter. Draco heard him make a noise of understanding. “Sorry for the chill. Now this place is yours, though, you could get Hermione or someone to fix the insulation charms.”

"Insulation charms won’t work on a house like this,” said Draco, maybe coming off as a bit pissy. Well, he hadn’t meant to.

“Oh?” said Weasley. Draco wanted to laugh at her pathetic little quip.

He paused to roll in his palm a large, milky marble that, upon further inspection, looked a bit like his grandmother’s glass eye. He set it down gently.

“It would be like… piecing a tree back together with spellotape.”

“What’s this about spellotape?” said Granger, who had rounded the corner and was giving Potter a fleeting embrace.

“Hey, Hermione,” said Weasley.

Draco regarded her happily. “I was just telling Weasley that casting insulation charms on a house like this would be like trying to heal a broken branch by spellotaping it back together.”

“That’s a thing, actually,” said Granger. “It’s called grafting. You put severed plants together, and they, you know. Okay, I see that this is irrelevant and somewhat tangential. Please go on, Draco.”

“For the sake of analogies, let’s imagine that in this alternate universe, trees and plants and things don’t heal when you force them together and really want them to. You have to _nurture_ them. The problem must be treated not at the symptomatic level - the fallen branch - but literally, at the _root_ of the problem.”

“Ooh, that’s a wonderful analogy,” said Granger. Draco gave her a smile that indicated he already knew this.

“Thanks,” he said. “So the problem with this house is not the cold or the howling or the pests, which are loyal to the bloodline, but with the soul of the house itself, and the wood and the stones and things that it’s made of. Potter, if you _really_ want to get rid of the chill, you’ll need to have someone experienced come round and assess the damage.”

“What,” said Weasley, “like you?”

Draco looked at her evenly, and then he shrugged. “Sure. This house reminds me of the Manor; I spent a long time cleansing the magic in my room before I could sleep without warming charms. But there are loads of other purebloods who’d know the ins and outs of it. Andromeda Tonks may have an idea.”

Weasley straightened. “I think you’d better stick to your own business, Malfoy. If Harry needs help, he’ll ask for it.”

They heard Potter clear his throat. “That’s okay, Gin. I don’t want to take her away from Teddy. It sounds like Draco’s got a good idea of the history, anyhow. Oh, hi, Professor.”

Minerva was standing in the doorway.

“If you’re all quite finished, the rest of us are ready to begin.” She glanced at Draco. “You’ll find the hall is rather chilly, I’m afraid. Come downstairs; there’s a fire waiting when you’re ready.”

She left. Draco thought she was much nicer to him than the others.

“Right, let’s go,” said Granger. She tugged pleasantly at Potter’s arm. Turning an eye on the lingering pale faces: “You two play nice, alright?”

He'd see about that.

The basement was cave-like and hot. Why was the goddamn kitchen down here?

They were all slotted in at the thick dining table, but the only trace of food he discerned was the glistening english muffin that Ron Weasley was presently shoving down his throat. There were nearly as many of them as there’d been the first time: Kingsley, Longbottom, Loony Lovegood, every last orange skull he’d come to expect. There was a number of Aurors and longtime associates of the Order whom Draco didn’t recognize and a house elf brooding in the corner who looked more than a bit narked off.

“That’s Kreacher,” said Potter. Draco craned his neck to look at him.

“Why does he look like someone’s shit in his food?”

“He always looks like that. Gin told me they asked him to leave, but he doesn’t want us defiling the most noble kitchen of Black.”

“Oh, shit. This is the Black ancestral home, isn’t it?”

Potter smirked. “Got it in one. Does it make you uncomfortable?”

Draco thought about taking the piss. “A bit,” he said instead. “I’ve been led to believe they’ve mounted the heads of all their dead house elves in the drawing room.”

“It’s true,” said Potter, somewhat gleefully. “And it’s horrible as it sounds.”

Girl Weasley interrupted them with a hand on Potter’s arm. Draco was immensely pleased to watch him step subtly out her reach. Then Draco sat down.

It wasn’t that the room was noisy, but everyone was sort of caught up in their own conversations. Potter was sitting far down the table but at such an angle that Draco could make eye contact with him by accident and more than once.

“Everyone’s here, then,” said Minerva. She was standing; nobody interrupted her. “Tea?”

Kingsley grunted. “Yes, please.”

A teapot and a gaggle of ornate cups were levitated about the table, and Draco politely refused when it reached his end; it smelled unappealingly herbal.

When the tea had made its rounds, Minerva nodded once at Kingsley and straightened in her chair.

“I think we’re ready to begin,” she said. “As you all know -”

Kingsley leaned over and whispered something to her. A crease appeared between her eyes; she looked unsure of herself. Her gaze flickered for a moment to Draco.

“Draco, Harry,” said Minerva. Draco glanced at Harry and met his eye. “If you’d follow Kingsley.”

Draco stood from his chair with a scrape and traced Kingsley’s steps to the doorway.

“Harry?”

Harry seemed to shake himself and followed.

The room was silent behind them when the door closed. The light here was dull and red, having the effect of drawing Draco’s hands to his eyes to rub away the dark. It just made the room more fuzzy. Potter’s eyes were lingering on his face, and Draco felt a pull behind his navel at the sight.

Kingsley led them down the hall and up a flight of stairs, culminating in a room connected to the parlor. He gestured for them to sit.

“Draco, how’s your mother?”

Draco watched him closely before answering. “She’s fine.” Kingsley looked calm as ever, but the careful tone he’d used with him made Draco suspicious of his motives. Why had he and Potter been separated from the others?

“Glad to hear it. And your aunt Andromeda?”

“Also fine,” he answered, a touch impatiently.

“Excuse me, Sir, but what does this have to do with the subject at hand, exactly?” Potter interrupted. Draco couldn’t tell whether it was for Potter’s benefit or his own.

“Good question, Mr. Potter. It matters more than you think.”

“What do you mean?” said Draco. The vein at his adam’s apple began to thrum.

“Mr. Malfoy, have you kept in touch with any of your family members since moving into the safe house?” Likely catching the anxious flicker of Draco’s eyes, he added, “There’s no problem if you have.”

He felt his fingers itch to move. He wanted badly to pick at something or tap or scratch. He stayed absolutely still. “Yes,” he allowed. _Undisclosed_. “We’ve owled a few times.”

"May I ask who?”

He hesitated. “My mother.”

“I see. Did she ever say something odd?”

“No,” he said. “Yes.”

"Do you mind if I ask -”

“It was recently. Would you mind being frank with me before you start in on the interrogation?” He felt Harry’s eyes on his face.

“Certainly. I apologise. The reason I felt it wise to separate you and your partner from the others is that the matter directly involves Lucius Malfoy.”

From his chest, a fast wave of cold spread into his toes, his eyes, his hands. “How so?”

“That is to say - the leader of the remaining Death Eaters is Lucius Malfoy.”

Harry said, “Are you sure?”

“We saw him ourselves, Mr. Potter.”

“But… What I mean to say is, how do you know for sure?”

“He confessed, Mr. Potter.”

“Oh.”

“Does he need something? Should I -”

“I don’t think you should leave.”

“Alright.”

“Sir, will the others have heard, by now?”

“Yes.”

“Could you bring Luna Lovegood, please?”

“Certainly, Mr. Potter. Won’t be a minute.”

"Malfoy? Kingsley’s getting Luna. Are - Should I do anything?”

x

When Draco was seven, the young crup appeared to him in the garden and kept coming back. Its fur had been short and soft as his cashmere sweaters, and it had dirtied its white mouth eating the food Draco brought for it: chicken bones, steak, the caviar he couldn’t stand. His mother would’ve had an ulcer if she’d known where his dinner was going. But the thing had been so small, and Draco had found a certain joy in taking care of something alive.

It took less than a week for Draco’s luck to run out. He’d been kneeling within the azaleas to stroke its ears as it slept when he turned to retrieve his bundle of dinner and was faced with what had appeared to be two very large, black beetles gleaming heatedly in the sunlight. They were shoes, he’d realised quickly. And they were very close.

It had been his father. He’d wondered, at first and with great anxiety, whether he might have been looking for something else and hadn’t caught sight of Draco yet. But then he’d had the sense to look up, and he was greeted with two eyes looking at him, the colour of cruel weather and made darker in the shadow cast by his white brow. Draco had started.

_“That hound is Muggle, Draco. Why don’t you come out of the flowers and say hello to our guests?”_

Draco’s stomach had rolled at the final word, and then he’d registered what his father had said. _“How do you know it’s Muggle?”_

 _“The tail, Draco.”_ His jaw had lengthened and twitched. _“The tail isn’t forked.”_

_But it’s still a baby, isn’t it?”_

His father had stared at him long enough to creep wickedly under his skin. _“Can you tell me, Draco, what the difference is between a Muggle infant and a wizard?”_

_“Is the wizard also an infant?”_

His father offered him nothing.

_“Is it that one of them’s magical and the other’s not?”_

_“Can you tell me why?”_

_“Why what? Why is one of them magical? Well… it’s just because… because you’re born with magic or you’re not. And the wizard was.”_

_“And can you tell me,”_ grated Lucius, _“what the difference matters?”_

Suddenly, Draco had remembered what his father always told him. _“The difference is that the Muggle is handicapped. His genes are dirtied. It doesn’t matter what he creates to bridge the difference, because his own body is worthless.”_

 _“Very good, Draco.”_ His father had sounded impressed with him. _“What does that tell you about the Muggle creature at your feet?”_

Draco had looked at his feet. The puppy was awake, and when Draco met its eyes, its ears flattened giddily against its head and its tail began to thump on the ground. The longer Draco stared at it without moving, the worse he felt. Draco intoned, _“It’s worthless,”_ and he knew that the animal didn’t understand, for its tail thumped harder and its back turned in delight.

When Draco had turned around, his father’s wand had been extended. And he’d killed it.

x

“You alright?”

Draco nodded at him. “I have low blood pressure.”

“Oh?”

“It means I’m prone to passing out, and things. Don’t worry about it.”

“I am worrying about it.”

Draco looked at him, bewildered. “Well, don’t!”

Draco was sitting on the rim of the bathtub as it filled with water hot enough to steam up the mirror. He made eye contact with the water rather than Harry. He wondered idly at the colour of bath water, and then he dipped his fingers in and held them to his nose. Smelled of lavender.

“What’d you put in here?”

“Nothing.”

“Why does it smell funny?”

“Oh, untwist, it’s just some soap.”

Draco turned and saw that his face was flushed. It made him want to tease him. “What else have you put in here? Should I be afraid?”

“Yes,” said Harry dully. “Water is extremely toxic, did you know?”

Draco cast him a sharp look, which made Potter laugh. “I think the bath’s ready.” Draco turned off the faucet, and suddenly the room was very still. He lowered his hand again to test the water. It was hot and, somehow, exactly the right consistency. He turned and saw that Potter hadn’t moved.

“Plan on watching?”

Potter’s face twitched with petulance. “I didn’t know your hair curled like that.”

Draco reached a hand up and felt the curls. “It doesn’t.”

“Must be the humidity,” said Potter, unperturbed. “It’s weird when you’re not looking all, you know, straight.”

Draco smirked. “You know what they say about pasta.”

“What?”

“Straight until it gets hot and wet. Something like that. Would you get out?”

Potter lingered a moment. Draco saw the moment his expression changed. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll make dinner.”  
         
He slid lower, until it lapped up his chin and hovered dangerously. If he inhaled sharply, it would go up his nose. Draco tilted his head back and around until his neck felt normal against the lip of the tub. He looked in front of him: his movement had disturbed the water through its surface, so that waves of it lifted the soft hair on his body. Draco angled a knee above the surface. The water cast his legs pale and green, like a merperson.

It didn’t really matter that Potter’s dad had bullied Snape. Draco’s dad killed people. He and Potter could never be the same. It wasn’t even in their blood. It wasn’t even in their nature. It wasn’t even about their dads. What did Blaise used to say? Trauma changes the way people react to things. So maybe Draco was an incredibly sad victim, and he was angry and hurt the people around him because of his torn up past, traumatic childhood. And wasn’t Harry starved as a child. Wasn’t he raised in a cupboard. Didn’t Draco live on a diamond as big as the Ritz.

Harry could be tetchy, stupid, and impatient, but he could never be selfish. It almost made Draco angry, except that he loved him. And despite all his father’s talk of power - or perhaps because of it - Draco could only be angry at himself; he had never been kind. Draco had never been pure like his hair or soft like his skin. No potion could make him brave, or selfless. Every day that passed his hands looked more like his father’s. Some days his eyes looked less like his mother’s. Some days Harry’s looked like sweet wine and redemption.

 

“Fucking bollocks, Malfoy! Why aren’t you waking up? I’m going to wring your neck if you haven’t died already.” Draco could hear him panting above him. “You’re breathing. God, don’t die, you stupid git.”

“What is it?” Draco immediately began coughing. “What happened? Holy shit, what the fuck are you doing with me?” Draco felt hysteric. He was naked and cold and Harry was manhandling him like - like -

“You fell asleep in the bathtub’s what happened! Stop moving, Jesus Christ.” Harry deposited him gently onto the mattress, and Draco registered that he was wrapped in a towel. Harry pulled the sheets roughly from underneath him and tucked them around Draco’s shoulders like he was a child. Draco felt his eyebrows knit. He stared at Potter, that stupid git, and he still couldn’t figure him out.

He started coughing again. It kept coming up, the itch in his throat. “How did you know I was…”

Harry, who was pulling drawers open loudly and making a terrible mess of Draco’s clothes, turned to spare a glance in his direction. He looked away so fast his glasses knocked askew, hasty, like he hadn’t liked what he’d seen. Draco pulled the sheets above his nipples self-consciously.

“Good timing, I guess.” His voice came out low and weak. “Um -” He cleared his throat. “You like grey?”

“Sure.”

Harry threw a shirt over his shoulder without looking. He moved to Draco’s underwear drawer, hesitated an instant, and threw the nearest pair of Y-fronts out of his sight.

“I was worried, because you’d been in there for something like an hour. So I went upstairs, and I listened first, but you weren’t making any noise, so then I knocked, and called your name like twenty times. I was really, really careful that you weren’t just using a silencing charm, or something. But, er, you weren’t, and when I saw you, you were sleeping, and when I came in, I knocked something over, and you slipped under water, so I got you out. I’m sorry to invade your privacy like that. I -” Harry tossed some trousers behind him, and then a ball of socks. “I’ll leave you alone in a minute. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, Draco. I - You probably think… Sorry.”

“I probably think what?”

Harry leaned against the dresser facing him, arms crossed. “Dunno, that I’m perverted, or something.”

“You saved me.”

“No, I’m just fucking stupid. Change into those clothes. Dinner’s ready when you are, okay? You know, I’ve considered attaching a string to your wrist I can pull to check whether you’re still responsive.”

Draco watched him rise and look for something in the bedside table. “I like that idea,” he said. “Now that you’re afraid for my life, I’ve so many choices how best to order you around. Think, Potter - I could threaten autoasphyxiation so you’d give me a back massage, or make me food.”

“Auto what? I already make you food.”

“Dunno, I think I made it up. My back hurts. Feels like I’ve slept on a fork.”

Potter began to laugh. “Maybe after dinner, if you’re nice.”

“What?”

“Back massage? Nevermind. I -”

“Well, if you insist!”

Harry turned so his fringe fell around his face, but not before Draco caught his blush. “Git. I’m going to do the laundry, later. I’m sorry I haven’t been doing much in the way of chores.”

“That’s me, the responsible one.”

Harry sagged with laughter. He made to leave.

“Thanks,” called Draco.

“Don’t mention it.”

When the door closed behind him, Draco slid cleanly out of bed, body rigid in the cold, and pulled his clothes on quickly. They didn’t match, but they were warm.

 

Dinner was good. Harry had always been a good cook, but he got this tense look about his face whenever he did, and Draco thought he knew why. So, Draco was usually the one in the kitchen. It wasn’t like Harry had asked him to; it just made him feel better about things. And anyway, it felt good to be appreciated.

“How does your arm feel?” Draco asked him in the kitchen. The goddamn sponge wasn’t working.

Harry took the plate from his hands and did it himself. “It feels good, actually. You did a good job on it.”

Draco quirked a smile. “Don’t give me too much credit. I got you that curse in the first place.”

“No, you didn’t.” Potter held his gaze. “I’m sorry I said that. It’s nobody’s fault. I mean, it was the Death Eater’s fault, but it wasn’t either of ours. It was mine, if anything. I’ve been told I can be quite stubborn, and… you know, I think I can see that, now.”

“Oh, hold on - let me grab a quill and parchment. My healer wants me to start a list, see, of reasons not to kill myself.”

Harry affected a sardonic laugh and began slotting their plates inside the dish cleaner. “You are so funny, Draco. Really a comic.”

“I know I am.”

“However did Pansy manage you? You must be more dramatic than her.”

“Hardly,” said Draco. “D’you know - once when we were nine or so, she told everyone invited to her birthday party that she was dying of a horrible disease so they’d buy her nicer presents?”

“Really!” Harry turned to look at him. A spot of soap was in his hair. “What’d she get?”

“Oh, you know. Trouble.”

“Pansy’s something, isn’t she?”

“You don’t know the half of it. Did you know she’s a fan of Celestina Warbeck? She put posters all over her dorm, and when she ran out of wall space, she put the cheap ones on mine. She had everyone fooled, that one. But I grew up with her, and I knew she’d always wanted to be the dad when we played house. It should’ve worked out, that I liked to be the mum, but we never wanted to kiss each other. Did you know she nearly killed Millicent when she was four? Millie got her gum stuck in Pansy’s hair, and Pansy got so angry that her magic poked holes all over Millie’s body, and she bled and bled all over. It sounds terrible, but the cuts were all shallow. I guess she didn’t nearly kill her, but really, it looked like it.. Pansy’s parents were really proud of her. She was only four or something, and it was one of her first experiences doing magic.” Draco glanced at his arm. “You’re sure there’s nothing I can do? People will like me better if I’ve saved your life.”

Potter smacked him, and then he smiled at him fondly. Draco’s stomach flipped with recognition. “You already saved my bloody life. I’m fine, honestly. You coming?” Harry paused at the doorway to look back at him.

“One second.” He washed his hands again and dried them. He always felt a little gross. “You finished the treacle tart, I see.”

Harry followed him up the stairs. When he didn’t immediately reply, Draco glanced back at him. Harry’s eyes flicked up to meet his. Had he been looking at Draco’s arse?

“It’s meant to be eaten!”

“Not in a week, and not by sick people!” They reached the bedroom, but Draco went immediately into the bathroom and began pulling materials out of the cabinets. He’d need to change the bandages. Oh, bloody hell, and he’d need to touch him.

“It wasn’t a week. And I’m not sick.”

Draco snorted. “Right. Sit down - I need to change your bandages.”

He made quick work of it - the scabs were healing, but he figured he was better safe than sorry. He wasn’t a bloody healer, though. His mother would be better at this.

“Alright, I’m finished. Give it a bend.”

Harry flexed his arm obediently. Draco watched the twitch of his muscles in fascination.

“Feels good,” said Harry. Draco flushed.

“Good?” He felt dizzy. “You’re not experiencing any… you know, discomfort?”

“I said I’m fine! Draco, are you experiencing any discomfort?”

“No, Potter. Unlike some people, I don’t make a habit of risking my life for the greater good.”

He laughed. “What about your back? You seemed pretty keen on whinging on about it earlier. You’re like the princess and the pea.”

“The what and the what? I am not a bloody princess!”

“Untwist, it’s just a Muggle story. Do you want me to help with your back?”

“What?”

“I can give you that back massage, if you’d like.” He flushed deeply. “I take my promises seriously.”

Draco’s heart thudded, his breaths felt shallow, and he wondered if Potter could hear. He didn’t point out that he hadn’t promised him anything. “Do you even know how?”

“Sure,” said Potter, sounding a bit relieved. “My aunt and uncle used to make me rub their feet.”

“I hope you don’t mean to imply that touching me has about as much appeal as working the callouses of your abusers’ sweaty toes.”

“No,” said Harry, smiling strangely. He looked insanely sweet. “Definitely not. Just let me try - I’ll stop if you tell me to.”

Draco looked at him a moment longer. Breathing quickly, he reached for the hem of his shirt and pulled it off at a normal, regular speed, and he lay down on his stomach, and he didn’t look sweaty or pale or flushed or eager.

Why hadn’t Potter moved? The sheets smelled like him. Oh, this was his bed. Why wasn’t he saying anything?

“Are you massaging me with your mind? It’s not working.”

“Shut up, I’m just - getting ready.”

The air was cold. “Any day now.” He drew his shoulders together in order to generate some heat. “I’m freezing to death, you -”

“Alright!” Harry’s hands touched his back, warmer and softer than his voice. Draco shivered. “Shut it, you git. I’m trying.”

Harry circled his thumbs along Draco’s shoulder blades, and then Draco felt the bed creak and shift beneath him. Harry must be straddling him, Draco realized. Harry pressed his weight through the heels of his hands, starting at the base of Draco’s spine and sloping up his back, to his shoulders, dragging some warm kind of lubricant where he touched, slow as molasses and deep, penetrating. It weighted him to the mattress, so that Draco breathed heavily into the cushion of his arms. He brought his hands again and again to the small of his back and to the crest of his shoulders. Then he seemed to finish - with a rush of incredible pleasure, Draco felt his hands press into his trapezii and neck. Physics was incredible, wasn’t it? Friction. Mmm.

“Does that feel okay?”

“Feels really good.” Draco sighed happily into his arms.

Harry made a little noise in his throat, and Draco felt a rush of affection for him so strong it stopped his heart.

He wanted to say something. “You were right; you are good at this,” he said.

He heard his grin. “O ye, of little faith.”

Draco submitted himself to the weight of it. A tender, thrilling calm seemed to seep into his skin like honey from Harry’s hands - the pressure like swimming in hot water. He didn’t feel cold anymore. Actually, one part of his body was beginning to feel extremely, alarmingly warm.

“You want me to do your legs, too?”

Draco didn’t think about it very hard. “Alright.”

“You’ll need to take your trousers off, then.”

“Oh.” For a moment, he was still blissfully calm, and then he heard him, and then he froze. Should he? How? What would he… “Alright.”

Draco hesitated a moment before he got up. He realized he couldn’t in good faith pull his trousers off on the bed; he’d have to turn over. He faced the bathroom and unbuckled his belt like he was undressing to jump in an extremely cold, unpleasant pool. The pants he had on were by no means reassuring to him - they were black, tight, and extremely prone to riding up Draco’s arse. Trust Potter to pick literally the cheapest pair of pants Draco owned. He kept them because they were comfortable.

Well, he reasoned, at the very least Potter might have something to look at.

Draco shuffled backwards and lay himself flat again on the mattress, not once allowing his pelvis to drift into Potter’s line of sight. He felt tense all over. It was one thing to expose his back to Harry; another thing entirely, then, to expose the backs of his knees, his ankles, his… And the ascent of his wicked pants had begun.

“I -” Harry spoke. “I need to get more oil.”

Draco heard the creak of his shifting weight and then his light feet on the floor. When he returned above him, Draco felt his toes brush his own. He was kneeling, then.

“I’m going to start now,” he said.

“Okay.”

Harry’s hands started at his right ankle, smoothing firm pressure along the muscle to the back of his knee, down again, up and up and high enough to make Draco flinch.

The worst part was knowing Harry was in control of him, but the worst worst part was the fact that Draco let him.

When Draco’s right leg began to feel hot and heavy as a stone, Harry moved to his left. He occasionally left a warm touch on his other ankle, as if he couldn’t bare for it to feel left out; Draco thought this was very considerate of him.

He felt sleepy and warm. He’d been sleeping poorly for several days, now. Since sixth year, his insomnia had been on and off. Maybe he was doing something wrong. If he was honest with himself, though, it likely in direct correlation with Voldemort’s activity - and what role Draco played in it.

This time, of course, it was his father. Who Draco didn’t want to think about.

He wondered if having Harry’s hands on his body like this - something divine, his closest brush with spirituality - was enough to let him sleep tonight. He thought so. He’d have to wank himself in the bathroom first, though.

Harry’s hands had moved to his feet. At this point, Draco was certain that the pain of his hard cock pressing into the mattress was doing nothing to stifle his libido.

It got worse. Harry - using both hands on both legs, now - was rubbing up and down along the backs of Draco’s thighs, emitting little gasps of breath - either of strain or sexual arousal.

Harry’s hands slipped higher with every stroke, until his fingers brushed the crease of Draco’s arse - over and over. Draco wondered if Harry expected him to tell him when to stop - but Draco wouldn’t. God, he wouldn’t. He wanted to lift his bare arse off the mattress and spread himself for Harry, beg him to use Draco, take him. Harry was making breathy sounds above him like he wouldn’t be opposed to it. Maybe Draco could offer him favours. Harry was bent; maybe he’d let Draco suck his cock. Anything.

Harry’s thumbs began to move.

It started light, subtle, like a mistake. When it happened again - and then again - Draco held his breath at the sheer pleasure of knowing. Harry was swiping his thumbs under the crease of Draco’s arse cheeks, over and over with every upward stroke, and then quicker, short strokes from the tops of his thighs. Draco was terrified that if he moved, spoke, swallowed, Harry would stop.

But he was full and harder than he’d ever been; when Harry began cupping and pushing at the bottom of his cheeks like he was fluffing a pillow, Draco was hard-pressed not to rut against the mattress like an animal, or - worse still - push his arse back into Harry’s hands, hot with friction and slick as sin.

Draco was sure he could feel the pubic hair between his legs. His fingers were pulling him apart, shallow at first and then deep, twisting his fingers in as he massaged the swell of his flesh - Harry couldn’t even bother himself to return to the pretense of Draco’s thighs. He massaged his arse in circles, thumbs turned in and pulling at his cheeks with each rotation.

His eyes went unfocused; his thoughts slowed, and then left him completely. He felt the warm slide of Harry’s hands across his skin, registered the slip of his pants.

“Is this okay?” He sounded like he’d had to repeat himself.

Draco shivered. “Yes,” he told him. “I want this.”

His pants slipped farther, stretched over his arse and fell. Harry’s hand came to rest at his hip.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wasn’t sure.”

“Weren’t sure about what?”

He hadn’t been sure Harry would want to. Because -

Oh, he realized with a start. His Dark Mark. He hadn’t remembered to keep his shirt on.

“Draco?”

He moved his arms so he could see it. Scar tissue whiter even than his skin, knotted, textured like a branch. It was so horribly mottled he could hardly see the shape of it, but when he squinted - it was so very close to his nose - he could see the belly of the snake, the crook of its mouth, and two uneven spots of skin. The eyes of the red skull.

He began to shake.

“Draco, turn over.”

“Did you see it?”

“Did I see what?”

“My scar.”

“Yes,” said Harry immediately. “I have one, too. Do you want to see?”

“No.”

“Do you want to see all of them?”

Draco turned over. His cock, wilted to half-mast, twitched when Harry looked at him.

“Look,” said Harry, who was really, actually straddling him. He brought his hand to Draco’s eyes.

I must not tell lies. “I’ve seen that one before,” said Draco, quietly. “You’ve already showed that to me.”

“I know,” said Harry. “I’ve shown you all of them before. Do you want me to show you again?”

Draco didn’t answer, so Harry brought Draco’s hand, this time, to his own chest.

“This is where the locket burned me.”

And,

“This is where a curse hit me.”

And,

“This is where the Horcrux was.”

And,

“This is… Actually, I can’t remember where this came from.”

And,

“This is where I got my name.”

Draco frowned. “Which one? Oh.”

“I’ve already seen the one on your arm. And I know how you got it, too. I know you don’t like it. I don’t like it either.” When Draco didn’t stop him, Harry took Draco’s arm gently in his hands and turned it over consideringly. “It looks a bit cool, though, doesn’t it?”

Draco barked a laugh. “What?”

“It’s an actual, physical battle wound. And it still looks like a snake.”

“That’s not a mark of honour, Potter.”

Harry smiled halfway and let Draco’s arm fall. “When I was little, I used to think my scar was really cool, too. I thought it looked like a lightning bolt.”

“That’s not the same thing. You didn’t know what it meant, and you didn’t choose it.”

“Did you?” Harry held his gaze. “Did you know what it meant?”

“Of course I did,” said Draco, voice raising without his consent. “I wanted it! I chose it! I was proud to be my father’s son!”

“So was I! Do you know what Hermione keeps saying, Draco? She says we’re the same person, only with different traumas.”

“She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

“Well, right, I mean - I don’t like to think we’re the same person, because that would mean I have much worse than an Oedipus complex -”

“It’s not the same thing. You fought for what you knew what was right. You were brave.”

“Draco,” said Harry, taking his shoulders, “you are among the most cowardly people I have ever met. You are also one of the best.”

Draco made a face. “Idiot. That doesn’t make any sense.” But his chest felt light.

Harry smiled, and it made Draco’s stomach turn. “It does to me. Hey - listen to me for once in your bloody life and feel my wrist.” He brought Draco’s fingers to his pulse point. “D’you feel that?”

It was fast as a hummingbird.

“It’s morse code for ‘you’re a git.’”

“And what’s that code for?” asked Draco.

Harry kissed him.

Draco ended up on his side, arms and legs wrapped around Harry as far as his pants would allow. Then Harry hooked a thumb in the waistband and tugged, and the whole thing slid over his prick, past his thighs, and - with a little help from Harry’s feet - straight onto the floor. Harry’s trousers were harder to manage - Draco had to divide his attention between licking the inside of Harry’s mouth and craning his neck to get a better look at his belt buckle. He had never been very good at multitasking.

“I’ll get it,” said Harry with a huff, except that Draco was combing through his hair, and it came out as more of a sigh.

He got them down to his knees on his own, and then Draco - oh, fuck, but Harry was warm - toppled Harry onto his back and pulled his y-fronts over the head of Harry’s cock and down, down, down.

That was Harry’s cock. Draco looked up at him. “This,” he said. He pointed between his legs. “I want this inside of me.”

Harry’s adam’s apple bounced. “Come here,” he said.

Draco crawled up and into his arms, bracing himself on an elbow to meet his lips halfway, and felt his thighs quiver with the force Harry wrought upon him. His hand came up to wind into Draco’s hair, another to pass up and down his back, light as wings; Draco’s nerves seemed to ripple with light. Harry did a very nice thing with his teeth that made Draco whimper like a starved thing, and then he bent a leg around Draco’s arse, and then he thrust.

His bare erection touched Draco’s, and he lost himself. Draco humped him feverishly, feeling Harry’s moans as vibrations to his cock, smaller than Harry’s and pink as candy.

“Stop, stop, stop,” Harry managed, panting. “Stop.”

Draco stilled immediately, cock aching with arousal. “What’s wrong? Did I -”

“No, I  - I was about to, you know, and I wasn’t sure if you still wanted -”

“I want to ride you,” said Draco immediately. “Less talking, more shagging!”

“Hold on, hold on!” cried Harry, laughing when Draco launched himself at him again. “I need to get the oil, it’s - Or you could get it.”

Draco crawled back onto the bed, cock waving in the air, already uncorking the vial. He poured a small amount of it into his palm and began to warm it between his hands - enough to ease Harry inside of him, but not so much that the friction was lost. And oh, did Draco love friction.

Draco reached a hand behind himself and, using the other to pull his cheeks apart, began to impale himself on his slick finger. The intrusion felt familiar and strange at once - he’d fingered himself like this before in the shower, slicking his hands with soap and wiggling past the ring of muscle. He’d fist his prick and fuck himself to climax, losing desperately at the fight to control his fantasies. His fantasies, of course, entailing Harry Potter with his cock bared.

“Draco,” he said now. Draco looked up from where he’d been staring at the blankets; Harry’s voice was something else entirely. “Turn around.”

Draco’s prick gave a hard twitch. Harry wanted to watch him. Or Harry wanted to help him. Oh, God.

Draco slipped his finger out and struggled to his knees, walking himself up Harry’s body until his prick grazed Harry’s chin. Then he turned around and bared himself to Harry: his elbows found purchase on the mattress, arse raised high in the air so that his sphincter clenched with every pulse of his cock.

He heard Harry lose his breath. “Can you - can you hand me the lube?”

Draco passed it to him.

He heard the cork pop out and then the wet sound of Harry hands rubbing together, warming the oil as Draco had.

Harry’s finger breached him without warning, and then he moaned - low and strong and heady like he’d tasted something incredible.

“Draco,” he stressed, “you’re amazing.”

Harry’s cock seemed to agree. Draco was practically at eye level with the purple head, and it twitched as Harry drove deeper. It was, unfortunately, out of reach of Draco’s tongue.

He added another finger.

“Fuck,” said Draco. It hurt. He had no idea he was so tight.

“Alright?” Harry asked him, rubbing Draco’s hips consolingly. “We don’t have to do this, if -”

“Shut up,” said Draco. “Keep going.”

Harry shut up, but his thrusts slowed, opting for deep, gentle strokes. Draco had had quite enough of that.

“Harder,” he moaned. “Fuck me with your hand, Harry!” This had the desired effect of producing a bead of come from Harry’s cock and an expletive from his mouth and, almost immediately, an acceleration of his right hand, whose enthusiastic pumping was beginning to sound a bit sticky.

“Okay, okay,” Draco panted after a minute, “I’m ready. Let me go.”

Harry released him and made a noise of surprise. “Sorry,” he said. “I hope that doesn’t bruise.”

Draco had wondered if Harry realized the strength of his own hands.

He turned for the second time and approached Harry’s cock, laying swollen, wet, and rejected against Harry’s stomach. Draco seized it and gave the thing an experimental pull; when he released it, it flopped immediately back to Harry’s stomach with its weight. Harry’s balls were deep red and very full - Draco imagined that if he began to wank Harry, they would bounce with his movement.

Draco aligned it carefully with his entrance, allowed it to brush wetly against his furrowed skin.

“Ready?” he asked Harry.

Without waiting for an answer, he lowered himself - impaled himself - onto Harry’s long, hot, thick cock, at once wincing with pain and deliciously full.

A gasp caught his attention. Draco chanced a look at Harry, and was stricken to see such a look of naked pleasure in his expression. His face was flushed already, sweat beading above his lip, and when he opened his eyes, Draco saw them - green by name only, but blown, dark, intoxicated. And Draco had done that to him.

“Draco,” he said, hands coming to grab at his thighs. “Draco.”

“Yes?” He moved around a bit, trying to get comfortable, then lifted himself up again and dropped onto Harry’s cock.

Harry’s mouth fell open. “Draco, stop, I’m going to come too soon -”

Draco stilled and watched him. Harry was panting out of his mouth, eyes closed and head thrown back. He wanted to bend and kiss his neck, but he was afraid, now, of moving too suddenly.

“Okay. Now I’m ready.”

Draco started slow. He was still being careful with Harry, was the thing, and also, it still sort of hurt. Then he moved a bit, sat again, and shouted.

“Fucking God and Merlin!”

“What? What?” said Harry wildly.

“That’s my prostate!”

“Isn’t that good?”

“Yes!”

“Oh,” said Harry. “Well, don’t stop.”

Draco didn’t intend to. His little hopping motions became frantic, met by Harry’s quick, erratic thrusts, the scent of sweat and their cocks, Harry’s hand on Draco’s cock as he humped him.

“Yes,” he kept saying. “God, yes.”

His climax was approaching like white fire, a burn that that started in his balls and shot like combustion up his spine, his throat, his eyes, the length of his whole pulsing cock, ropes of it flying like tossed ribbon across his stomach, Harry’s stomach, Harry’s face.

His arsehole squeezed with his release; Harry’s fist rode him out, and then Harry cried out, and Draco’s arse filled with warmth, and Harry thrust, and Harry pumped, and Harry stilled.

He slipped out of him with a wet pop and Draco collapsed beside him, exhausted and shivering with bliss. He watched the rise and fall of Harry’s chest, his thick, damp hair, the sheen of cooling sweat. His cock lay red and flaccid against his stomach; his nipples were peaked in the cold.

A long time passed. He thought Harry might be falling asleep.

“Are you asleep?”

“No,” said Harry. His voice was still breathy.

“Oh,” said Draco. “Are you thinking?”

Harry breathed out in a rush. “Yeah. I’m thinking about how I can’t ever have sex again.”

“How come?”

“I’ll… Because I’ll have to imagine it’s you to get it up, and I’ll offend my partners by calling someone else’s name.”

“Oh,” said Draco. “Mine?”

“Yes,” said Harry.

“Oh.”

Harry rolled over to face him - his hands came out to tug at Draco’s shoulders.

“Draco,” he said.

Draco didn’t look at him. “What?”

“Do you like me?”

“I’m in love with you.”

“Oh.”

Harry took Draco’s hand, and he pressed it against his own chest. It was almost in time with the rain.

 

x

 

SOME TIME LATER  
Harry

 

“So?”

“So, what?”

“So, what are you going to do about it?”

Harry picked at his fingernails. “I don’t know.”

The Burrow was rosy with Christmas; for hours, Harry and his friends had chatted and dined with the Weasleys, celebrating safety and the promise of good food. The rooms were warm with charmed fairy lights; the fire glowed and lapped warmth across their faces. For dinner, Ron had impressed everyone by producing a feast to rival Mrs. Weasley’s, who had become rather emotional when George arrived. It was nearing twelve in the morning, now, and the only people left awake were Bill and Fleur - the latter rather pregnant - who were in charge of getting Teddy into bed and doing a very poor job of it. Ron and Hermione were sitting with Harry by the fire, out of earshot.

They sat in silent contemplation for a moment; then Ron said, at length, “I could ask Pans.”

“That’s true,” said Hermione, somewhat hopefully. “She might start talking to you again if she sees you’re making an effort.”

Ron frowned. “Nah, she said she wouldn’t until Draco stopped looking like that.”

“Like what?” Harry asked before his brain could catch up.

Ron screwed up his face in concentration for a moment. “She used the phrase - let me see if I can get this right - ‘a manifestation of anticathexis with blond hair.’ She also said he looked rather sad.”

“Oh,” said Harry. Pansy and Draco must have been very happy together - reading aloud passages from the great poetry of Nietzsche and Freud under the stars, perhaps feeding each other grapes as they deliberated on penis envy.

“What are you laughing about?”

“Nothing,” said Harry. “Nothing. I’m just -” He had to stop talking. He swallowed. “I think I love him… or something.”

“We’ve gathered.” Harry looked at Hermione: her expression was dry like the sun was hot.

“Mate, just so you know, nobody would care if you two shacked up. It’d actually be… Well, look - not to alarm you, but everyone sort of… knows.” He looked to Hermione as if for her approval. “And… Ginny’s been sort of contacting him, because she’s worried about you -”

“She’s what?”

“Hold on, she hasn’t told him anything, she’s just -”

“Harry, I promise she hasn’t -”

But Harry wasn’t listening. “I’m going to -” He didn’t know what he was going to do. His blood pulsed with it. To think that Ginny had been owling Draco…! Without even telling him! Without saying anything about it, like it wasn’t his love life she was meddling in!

Harry rose from his seat on the couch and took long strides out of the sitting room.

“Harry!” said Hermione, voice torn between calling out for him and keeping her voice down for Teddy’s sake. “Harry, come on, it’s twelve in the morning!”

“Mate,” said Ron, more helplessly.

Ginny. He couldn’t believe he’d told her, he should’ve known she’d react like this - that she’d meddle - just like Hermione, God, he was going to -

But the door opened behind him, and several things happened at once:

The alarm shaped like a chicken began to make loud, horrible screeching noises;

A gust of cold air hit his back;

Hermione appeared at the door in front of him…

Then promptly dropped the book in her hand.

“Oh,” she said.

Harry turned around.

“Hey,” said Draco. “I brought you a present.”

 

Harry orgasmed three times, and then they had to stop, because they ran out of lube. Pity, that neither of them had bothered to learn the charm.

They lay on their sides, afterward, stroking each other in the dark. Draco was delicate like snow, angular and pale like he hadn’t expected to find so alluring. And his arse. God and Merlin, his arse.

“Why didn’t you owl me?” asked Draco, speaking into Harry’s chest as he held him.

Harry pressed closer. “I thought you needed space.”

“I did. Just not from you.”

“Oh,” said Harry, who was laughing, now. “Boys are so confusing.”

“You’re a boy,” Draco pointed out.

“I meant nice boys.”

“I’m not a nice boy.”

“Nice-looking boys.”

“I’m not a boy.”

Harry laughed aloud. “My mistake. You’re a big, manly man. A man who cuddles and takes it up the arse, granted.”

Draco flicked him hard in the nose. “I’m not a man. I’m just Draco. The concept of ‘man’ is for people like my father.”

Harry smiled at him. “Dracos are so confusing.”

“Good thing there’s only one of me.”

Harry kissed him again, because his lips were soft and right there.

“Thanks for being the bigger person,” he said quietly, against his lips. “I would have spent my whole life waiting, otherwise.”

“You’re an idiot,” said Draco - rather redundantly, in his opinion.

“Hey,” said Harry, having had a Good Idea. “We should learn that lubrication charm tomorrow, and then we can beat our high score at your place.”

“That’s the best idea I’ve ever heard,” said Draco. “The second best idea was when Molly Weasley decided you needed your own bedroom. D’you know what?”

“What?”

“I think you could probably top me under the stars, if we time it right.”

“You think so?”

“I know so. D’you know what else?”

“What?”

“You’re going to call my name, and it’ll be doubly, triply good, because - listen - first, it’ll be good because you won’t have to worry, not ever again, even, about partners hearing you call my name, and second, it’ll be like you’re calling to the Draco constellation, and we can even have sex in the day and it’ll be like that, because the stars never set.”

“You’re right,” said Harry. “It’s the same thing.”

Fin.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! You can show your appreciation for the author in a comment here or on [livejournal](https://hd-erised.livejournal.com/98729.html). ♥
> 
> This story is part of an on-going anonymous fest hosted at hd_erised@livejournal.com. The author will be revealed January 8th.


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